Doctrine of God: Trinity (Part 1): There Is One God

Introduction

We’ve just finished a very long excursus on natural theology – looking at arguments for and against

the existence of God. Before we begin our next section, let’s step back and reconnoiter.

This excursus on natural theology is a subsection of a larger unit that we’ve been covering on the

doctrine of God. The first subsection of the doctrine of God that we looked at was the attributes of

God in which we discussed God’s nature. Then we temporarily took this excursus on natural

theology to look at arguments for God’s existence and against it. Now we want to come to the

second subsection of the doctrine of God, and this is on the doctrine of the Trinity.

If I were to ask you here this morning, “How many of you think that God is a person?” probably a

number of you would say, “Yes.” Well, technically it is incorrect to say that God is a person. Rather,

God is three persons. This is the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. God is personal, yes, but he is not

“a” person. This is what serves to distinguish Christianity from other monotheistic faiths like Judaism

or Islam which also agree that there is one God who is personal but they think there is only one

person who is God. This also serves to distinguish Christianity from various Christian cults and sects

like Mormonism (Latter Day Saints) or Jehovah’s Witnesses. You will find inevitably that these

sectarian groups get the doctrine of the Trinity wrong – it is almost like a thermometer that you can

use to test these different groups to see whether or not they adhere to biblical Christianity.

Unfortunately, the average Christian has little understanding of the doctrine of the Trinity. If he gets

into a conversation with a Jehovah’s Witness who comes to his door, I’m afraid that the average

Christian will be completely overwhelmed and unable to defend his Trinitarian faith. In fact, if you

probe deeply, he probably turns out to be a heretic in the view of the Trinity that he actually

espouses. So it is important, I think, that we discuss the doctrine of the Trinity to make sure we

accurately understand it.

The doctrine of the Trinity is often obscured by Christians in mystery. Sometimes they will say that

the doctrine of the Trinity is logically inconsistent or it is an affront to reason and something that can

be held only by faith. It is a mystery. But I think this really does the doctrine a disservice. The

doctrine of the Trinity is not even apparently logically contradictory. The doctrine of the Trinity is not

the self-contradictory doctrine that three gods are somehow one God, or that three persons are

somehow one person. Rather, the doctrine states that there are three persons in the one God.

Another way to put it: God is tri-personal.

Often Christians will offer inadequate analogies of the Trinity in order to explicate this doctrine. For

example, we are sometimes told that the doctrine of the Trinity is like one man who is a son, a

husband, and a father. There is one man but he is a son, he is a husband, he is a father.

Unfortunately, that is not an adequate or accurate analogy for the Trinity because in that case you

have only one person who is simply playing three roles or has three relationships, but there really is

only one person that is there.[1] Another analogy that is often used is that water can be liquid,

steam, or ice. Yet it is all H2O. This is perhaps a better analogy because at least here you have one

substance – one essence (H2O) – but this could be in the form of a liquid or of steam or of ice. But

again the analogy really fails because the water is only successively in those various stages. It can

be first liquid, and then if it freezes it turns to ice, or if you boil it it turns to steam. But it is not

simultaneous. It is a succession of states in the water.

I think it is better just to avoid these sorts of analogies. They are all, I think, going to be inadequate in

the end. It is better to simply say that just as I am a being with one center of self-consciousness

whom I call “I”, God is a being who has three centers of self-consciousness each of which can say

“I”. Each one has a first-person perspective: I think that I am the Father. I am the Son. I am the Holy

Spirit. In the same way that I can say, I am William Craig.

So God is a tri-personal being. He is a being with three centers of self-consciousness in contrast to

human persons who are one being with one center of self-consciousness.

The doctrine of the Trinity is a systematic summary of the data of Scripture. Therefore, it doesn’t

really matter that the word “Trinity” is not found in the Bible. The important thing is not the word, but

rather the concept or the data that this word denominates. Any word could be used to denominate

this doctrine so long as the scriptural data are respected and not twisted or bruised in any way. The

significant thing is not the word “Trinity.” The significant thing will be the concepts that the Trinity

embodies, namely that God is a single tri-personal being.

START DISCUSSION

Student: One way that I heard it explained that I thought made it helpful to me understand what the

doctrine is is the way I heard Nabeel Qureshi once describe it. As he talks about it, it is “one what,

but three whos.” One being, three persons. He relates a little bit to what you said, but I like the way

he explains it where he says if you ask me What am I? I can say, I am a human being. I have a

brain, lungs. But that doesn’t answer Who I am? So God is one “what” but three “whos.”[2]

Dr. Craig: Yeah. That is very nice. I’ve not heard it put that way but that does capture the idea of

three persons (three “whos”) but one “what” - one being, one substance. That is from a fellow who

comes from a monotheistic faith that required a great adjustment and change on his part with a

Muslim background.

Student: The defense that a [Jehovah’s Witness] would put forth oftentimes is the Scripture that says

“The Father is greater than I.” I know you are about to jump into that. I would hope when you do that

you address that.

Dr. Craig: All right. When we get to the deity of Christ we could talk about that. I won’t do that now.

We are going to look at the scriptural data here in a moment.

Student: I don’t understand the three “I”s. Are they distinct? Do they communicate with each other?

Are they a Venn Diagram? What would make them independent rather than knowledgeable of all

three?

Dr. Craig: These are great questions. I want to say yes they are distinct. These are three distinct

persons. It is not as though one person can be another person. Persons are distinct. That doesn’t

mean they are independent of each other in the sense that one person could exist without the other

one because these persons belong to the same being.[3] So it is not as though one of the persons

could be extinguished and the other person still exists. So they are not independent, but they are

distinct. They are not identical. The Father is not the Son and is not the Holy Spirit. We can say that

the Father is not identical to the Son and is not identical to the Holy Spirit. I’m getting way ahead of

myself! But when we say that the Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God, we are not

making an identity statement. What we are making is a predication of divinity or deity to the Father,

the Son, and the Holy Spirit. We’ll talk more about these questions, but the short answer would be

that these are distinct persons. We must not try to merge them into one person. They are distinct

persons, but they are not independent in that these are the self-conscious persons or

consciousnesses of a single being which is God.

Student: But all three are all-knowing?

Dr. Craig: Yes.

Student: So wouldn’t they know each other and wouldn’t that make them non-distinct?

Dr. Craig: They are personally distinct in the sense of identity. Just as you are not Carol or Mary.

These are distinct persons. But I think you are quite right in saying that because each one is divine

(each one is deity) each one is omniscience, omnipotent, all-loving, and eternal. Each has to share

the essential properties of deity which we’ve already looked at.

Student: There would be no distinction between the knowledge of each or the understanding of each

then. What is distinct then?

Dr. Craig: Let me nuance it a little bit. Recall when we talked about the attribute of God’s

omniscience. We defined omniscience in terms of propositional knowledge. That is to say, in terms

of knowledge of all true propositions or facts. We said that a being S is omniscient if and only if (or

by definition) for any proposition P, S knows P and does not believe not-P. If those conditions are

fulfilled then S is omniscient. This is defined as you notice in terms of propositional knowledge. If you

look at your notes from that discussion of omniscience, we pointed out that God is even greater than

omniscient because there is also non-propositional knowledge. This would be knowledge of first

person statements like “I am the Father.” That is not something that the Son knows. The Son knows

that from his perspective “You are the Father.” But he doesn’t think, “I am the Father.” He would be

deluded if the Son believed he was the Father. Similarly the Holy Spirit knows “You are the Son. You

are the Father.” The Holy Spirit does not believe “I am the Father” or “I am the Son.” I am saying all

this because you are asking a very important question about what these persons know and are they

different in knowledge. What I want to say is that being omniscient they all have the same

propositional knowledge, but being different persons they would have different non-propositional

knowledge. Each one has a first person perspective that will yield unique first person non-

propositional knowledge. Is that clear? If you don’t remember this, look back at the notes on the

divine omniscience section.

Student: You used the word tri-personal to describe the Trinity. I think you have to be really careful

with that because I’ve seen error (I can’t remember where I’ve seen it) where the Trinity is referred to

as personalities, which would be an error. Each person of the Trinity does have a unique personality

but there is a difference between a person and a personality.

Dr. Craig: By personality, you mean something like a psychology or kind of character?[4]

Student: Exactly. Say you assign a personality to the Father and another one with the Son, you end

up with Modalism.

Dr. Craig: I am talking about personhood here.

Student: I understand that. It is just that when you used the word tri-personal to describe the Trinity, I

was a little concerned about that because I’ve seen this error.

Dr. Craig: Just understand that caveat that one is talking about personhood and not personality.

Student: Since it was brought up the knowledge of the three different beings . . .

Dr. Craig: Three different persons! Not three different beings.

Student: Sure. I’m sorry. Yes, I’m just talking quickly. The three different persons of God. Could you

address the Scripture where Jesus talks about the end times and says, Not even the Son knows but

only the Father knows? Because that sounds like propositional.

Dr. Craig: We are getting a little ahead of ourselves just like the previous question about The Father

is greater than I. Let’s hold those questions until we get to the deity of the Son, then we can raise

those issues. OK? Right now we are just introducing the doctrine and want to understand this idea of

one God who has three centers of self-consciousness.

Student: Would you define propositional knowledge? Because wouldn’t that not fall under

propositional knowledge?

Dr. Craig: It would. Yes, it would. By propositional knowledge, a proposition is the information

content of a sentence. So, for example, the sentence “Barack Obama is the President of the United

States” has that information content that Barack Obama is the President of the Unites States. But

suppose Barack Obama says, “I am the President of the United States.” In that case, he uses a

different sentence to express the same proposition that I just expressed when I said, “Barack Obama

is the President of the United States.” It has the same information content but the words can be

different because he is saying it from a first person perspective and I’m talking from a third person

perspective. Another word for true propositions would be “facts” - factual knowledge. Maybe that

would help. The idea basically is you take a declarative sentence and then you ask, “What is the

information content conveyed by that sentence?” That is propositional content. Propositional

knowledge would be knowledge of all true propositions. Again, this is what possible worlds are made

of. Remember, a possible world is just a list of all the true propositions that describe reality. That

would be similar. A knowledge of all true propositions.

Student: Would it be inappropriate to think of it as one being with three faces? Like in Revelation

they talk about faces.

Dr. Craig: This is really interesting, what you just said. Historians have said that you don’t really have

in the ancient world prior to these trinitarian debates among the church fathers the concept of

personhood. The Greek word for “person” is prosopon and a prosopon was the face mask worn by a

Greek actor in the Greek theater. When you wear that mask that would be your face or prosopon.

This is the word that came eventually to mean a person. The problem with sticking with that

metaphor of the face is that it sounds very much like the doctrine that there is really only one person

here – one actor – but he is playing different roles by putting on different masks. And we don’t want

to say that.

Student: I’m envisioning a being and, not that he changes masks to depict a character or being, but I

am thinking of a being that has three faces simultaneously.

Dr. Craig: All right. That is a metaphor, but I think I understand what you are saying. That does

capture the idea of this tri-personal being – three (as it were) faces that stand to each other in “I-

thou” relationships and can interact and interact with the world.[5] I just, again, would caution about

using metaphors like that because it could sound like a single actor wearing three masks. And you

don’t want to say that.

Student: It is just so hard – in a human mind – to try to capture the reality of the Trinity without any

help (if you will) in a way to envision it.

Dr. Craig: Yeah, an analogy. I appreciate that. Yes.

Student: Building on what was just said, and coming from a theatrical background, rather than

saying one actor with three faces, that actor is portraying three different identities via the masks.

Dr. Craig: But that again wouldn’t be the full doctrine of the Trinity because you still have only one

person there.

Student: Yeah, I’m just taking hers a step further for clarification.

Dr. Craig: All right, Although that is not what she wanted to say. Right, a single Shakespearean actor

might play a girl or he might play a fellow based upon the costuming and effect of his voice. Those

can be different roles. That would be a heretical version of the Trinity because you don’t preserve

there the distinction of the persons that we were talking about.

Student: Can I have you draw two diagrams – real simple diagrams? The first is a circle with an

arrow coming in and an arrow coming out.

Dr. Craig: OK. Is this what you had in mind?

Student: Yes, exactly. Then the next diagram will be two circles with one arrow in between.

Dr. Craig: OK. Which way does the arrow point?

Student: It doesn't matter. That's right. That's good. Can we say that man is the diagram on the top –

that we have to have input and output. Can we say that God is the diagram in the lower end where

the Trinity are explained by those three things?

Dr. Craig: Ah. Don't we need to add a third circle?

Student: No. The Holy Spirit is the arrow.

Dr. Craig: Oh! OK. Well! There are theories of the Trinity advocated by certain medieval theologians

like Thomas Aquinas in which he thought of the Son and the Holy Spirit as subsistent relations (that

is what he called them) in which God stands. He would want to say something like this. This relation

here is one of the persons of the Trinity. Now I can't make sense of that myself. I don't see how the

idea of a relation can be a person. For me, I just find this completely unhelpful. But you are not out of

bounds in talking this way, at least in terms of classical theology.

Student: Can I use an illustration of, say, if we say God the Father is the Creator and all his ways are

expounded in words like the Bible or any truthful document or whatever. Then the Son is the receiver

of all that and manifestor of all that.

Dr. Craig: The Son wouldn't be the receiver of God's creating activity. Otherwise you make the Son a

creature, right? And you don't want to say that. But there is in among the church fathers, as we'll

see, this doctrine that somehow the Son is begotten from the Father and not in his human nature but

in his divine nature. Among the trinitarian persons, there is this relationship of dependence of the

second person on the first. Some of these medieval theologians think of this in terms of a relation

where God the Father is like the subject of the relation (an “I”) and then the Son is the object of that

relation (“me”). So, for example, when I think about myself – when I think about me – I am both the

subject (“I”) but I am also the object of my thought (“me”). I and me![6] There is this type of medieval

theology that thinks of the trinitarian persons (at least the Son and the Spirit) as these relations in

which the Father stands. Again, to my mind, that doesn't make sense. It isn't what we mean by a

person. I don't see how a relation can be a person. But you are not out of bounds so to speak in

talking like this because among medieval theologians and Catholic thinkers in particular this type of

trinitarian thinking is prevalent.

Student: The reason I wanted you to draw the two diagrams is I wanted to emphasize that men are

entity-focused and God is relational-focused. Where I originally wanted you to draw one arrow from

the Father to the Son, in essence God is probably demonstrating a relationship more so than an

entity so that the Trinity comes in.

Dr. Craig: OK. Well, I won't say any more than what I've already said except that on these views they

typically will add a third person who proceeds from the Father and sometimes from the Son. Indeed,

sometimes they will say that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father by the Son. That is a

distinction between Eastern Orthodox thinking and Catholic thinking – whether or not the Holy Spirit

proceeds directly from the Father or does he proceed through the Son. Here we are getting into very

fine points of church history and Christian doctrine that, I think for now at least, I want to set to one

side.

Student: I think I get your point that we can't come up with analogies for the trinitarian God. Maybe

stop with coming up with analogies and try to understand who God is. Are we right to say that God is

God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit? Can we say that?

Dr. Craig: Yes, I think that is right.

Student: Then, when you drew up there saying the Father does not equal the Son, the Son does not

equal the Holy Spirit, can we say that God equals Father plus Son plus Holy Spirit?

Dr. Craig: I think that that isn't the way that we should speak.

Student: I'm just trying to understand who God is myself.

Dr. Craig: Right. Remember Bill Clinton once remarked that it all depends upon what the meaning of

the word “is” is. That was very profound! When you say, He is the king, you could take that to be an

identity statement – some person is identical to the king. But suppose you have a co-regency in

which, say, there are two kings that are sharing the throne as often happened in history. In that case

then it is not an identity statement to say that He is the king. Rather, what you mean by that would

be something like He is royal. This second one is not an “is” of identity; it is an “is” of predication.

You are predicating a property of that person. You are not saying that he is identical to something. It

really is true that it all depends on what the meaning of the word “is” is! Is it an “is” of predication or

an “is” of identity? When we say that the Father is God we don't want to say that this is an “is” of

identity because since the Son is God as well that would lead to the conclusion that the Father is the

Son which we know is false. So this is not a way of making an identity statement. This is an “is” of

predication. It means the Father is divine. The Son is divine. Therefore both the Father and the Son

are divine.[7] But they are not identity statements anymore than He is royal is an identity statement.

That is why I want to explain when we say the Father is God, the Son is God we need to be sure that

we understand how we are using the word “is.” Is that helpful?

Student: Sure it is.

Dr. Craig: To someone at least! [laughter] Just think about it. Think about that difference between an

identity “is” and an “is” of predication. I didn't intend this to be difficult! It is just that you ask

questions! [laughter]

Student: I'm just looking for some advice on how to deal with grandchildren in this area. I was doing

a devotional the other day with my grandchildren (they are six years old) and it was Jesus at the

Garden of Gethsemane praying. Afterward the grandson asked, “If Jesus is God, why does he have

to pray to anyone?” I said, “That's a great question for your grandmother.” [laughter]

Dr. Craig: Oh, come on! You can't pass the buck! I would get them our children's series What is God

Like? which is a series of ten illustrated booklets featuring this very endearing cartoon family Brown

Bear and Red Goose and their two little children Charity and John. The ninth volume in that series is

called God is Three Persons. It is an explanation by Papa Bear to the little children about what the

doctrine of the Trinity is all about. This will be an easy and entertaining way to explain this to them,

and then will provoke wonderful conversations with your grandchildren about what these issues

mean. With respect to your specific question, I think you should say Jesus was not only God, he was

also man. So as a man, he depended upon the Father to guide him and to empower him. He

worshiped the Father. When Jesus is praying to the Father, this is Jesus as a man praying to God

the Father.

Student: If we were to view a trinitarian being that was not God (not perfect in all ways), wouldn't one

person of the Trinity be able to disagree with another person of the Trinity?

Dr. Craig: This is one of the objections that sometimes is raised against thinking of the persons of

the Trinity as three centers of self-consciousness (as opposed to, say, subsistent relations such as

what was discussed before). What if they disagreed with each other? There I think one would simply

say that in virtue of their omniscience and their moral perfection, there isn't any possibility of

disagreement, because what the Father wills, the Son and the Spirit also will, what the Father

knows, the Son and the Spirit know, what the Father loves, the Son and the Spirit also love. So there

isn't any possibility of disharmony among the persons of the Trinity precisely because he is the

perfect being.

END DISCUSSION

With that, we have introduced the subject that we will be discussing over the next several weeks. I

think at this point it would be a good time to simply bring today's lesson to a close. What we will talk

about next time will be the scriptural data that undergird the doctrine of the Trinity. We will see that

the Scriptures teach both that there is one God and one God alone, but also that there are three

distinct persons in the Godhead.[8]

Trinity (Part 2): Three Distinct Persons in the Godhead

The Biblical Data

We've just introduced the subject of the Trinity. Last time I indicated that although the word “Trinity”

is not found in the Scriptures, that is really incidental. The point is that the doctrine of the Trinity is a

systematic summary of the biblical data that indicate two things: that there is one God and that there

are three distinct persons in the Godhead. If those facts are true then the doctrine of the Trinity is

true. Let's look at the scriptural data today that support these two truths.

First, that there is one God. Both in the Old Testament and in the New Testament we find that this

doctrine is taught – monotheism, there is but one God. Turn to Deuteronomy 6:4: “Hear, O Israel:

The LORD our God is one LORD” This is the fundamental confession of Judaism – the so-called

shema. The first clause of that confession is the uniqueness of God – there is one LORD.

1 Kings 8:60 – this is Solomon’s benediction on the occasion of the dedication of the temple. He

prays “that all the peoples of the earth may know that the LORD is God; there is no other.” So there

is no other God than the LORD – the God of Israel.

Isaiah 45:5a, 18:

I am the LORD, and there is no other, besides me there is no God. . . . For thus says the LORD, who

created the heavens (he is God!), who formed the earth and made it (he established it; he did not

create it a chaos, he formed it to be inhabited!): ‘I am the LORD, and there is no other.’

So the God of Israel is the only God that there is. There is no other God.

In Isaiah 44, you find at length a satirical critique of the pagan deities of Israel's neighbors. In Isaiah

44 you have this biting satire of idolatry – how the idolater carves a piece of wood, paints it,

decorates it, clothes it, and then falls down in front of his own creation and says, Thou art my God,

and worships the products of his own hands. Isaiah just laughs at this – makes fun of it, at its folly.

Israel did not consider itself to simply have a special God – one of the many gods, this was Israel's

God. No. Israel's God was the only God that there is. There is no other God besides the LORD,

besides Yahweh.

In the New Testament, the Christian followers of Jesus taught and believed the same thing – there is

only one God. Look, for example, at Mark 12:29. Jesus is asked what is the greatest commandment

and “Jesus answered, ‘The first is, “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.”’” He here

quotes the shema as the fundamental commandment and confession of Israel and affirms Jewish

monotheism.[1]

Similarly, in Romans 3:29-30a, Paul also affirms monotheism. Paul says, “Or is God the God of

Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, since God is one.” So, again,

Paul did not conceive the Jewish God to be just one of many. He says the God of Israel is, in fact,

also the God of Gentiles because there is only one God and therefore Jew and Gentile alike can be

united in the worship of the one true God.

In 1 Corinthians 8:4, addressing the subject of pagan idolatry, Paul says, “As to the eating of food

offered to idols, we know that an idol has no real existence, and that there is no God but one.” So

these idol gods are not real gods. They are figments of the imagination. In fact, he says, there is no

God but one – the God of Israel.

1 Timothy 2:5: “For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man

Christ Jesus.” Again, Paul affirms the uniqueness of God - there is one God and one mediator

between God and man.

Finally, in James 2:19, James says, “You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons

believe – and shudder!” So even the demonic forces are monotheists – even the demons believe

that there is one true God and they tremble because they stand under God's wrath and

condemnation.

So, to state the obvious, it is clear that the Bible teaches there is but one God, and the Old and New

Testaments concur that this is the God of Israel.

START DISCUSSIONStudent: As I'm sure you know, in Mormonism they believe there is an infinite number of gods that

are created one after another and goes back to infinity. One of my favorite verses when talking to

Mormons about this is Isaiah 43:10 where it explicitly says, Before me no God was formed nor shall

there be any after me. That is a good verse that I find works very well with Mormons.

Dr. Craig: OK. Excellent! It is amazing the forms that polytheism can take, isn't it? That would

preclude the idea of there being a god before the God of Israel.

Student: In fact, I find a lot of that stuff in Isaiah – chapter 43 thru 48. It is just chock full of all kinds

of verses that just refute the Mormon conception of God.

Dr. Craig: Yes. Those passages in Isaiah are so powerful in their criticisms of polytheism and

idolatry. Very good.

Student: Especially when God says, I know no other.

Dr. Craig: Yeah, I don't know of any other god. There is none but me, he says.

Student: There is an important distinction that needs to be made in terms of how the Bible

approaches the subject of God compared to how a lot of other people approach it. It is interesting in

a way because as someone pointed out the Bible considers God's existence to be self-evident. It

doesn't really attempt to directly justify the existence of God saying he exists because. I think that is

interesting though. A lot of people will say that is circular reasoning to believe in the existence of

God is self-evident but I really think considering something as self-evident is not the same as circular

reasoning.[2] For example, we consider it self-evident that people need water to survive because

people will die if they go more than a few days without it. I think in maybe a bit of a somewhat less

obvious way I would say the existence of God is self-evident like that. I really like the way the Bible

approaches it. It seems it is the case based on the available evidence.

Dr. Craig: Alright. It is important that we note that the way you illustrated this – that people need

water in order to survive – shows that by self-evident what you do mean is something like it is

obvious. But you don't mean it is evident apart from evidence. The way we know that people can't

survive without water is we have good evidence for that – we see them die when they don't have

fluids. It is not self-evident in the sense that 2+2=4 where once you understand the meaning of the

terms alone you don't need any evidence. It is true as it were by definition. Once you understand the

meaning of 2+2 and the meaning of the term 4 then it is self-evident. So you are not using the word

“self-evident” in that mathematical sense. You are using it more in a colloquial sense that it is

obvious. I think that is what the Scripture teaches. As you began your question, I thought about what

it says in Romans 1:20. Paul says, “Ever since the creation of the world, God's invisible nature –

namely his eternal power and deity – has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made

so they are without excuse.” Here Paul says that God's existence is made evident or obvious in the

created world. When we look at the creation then it is evident that it has been fashioned by a

powerful and eternal Creator, so much so that people have no excuse for unbelief. I think you are

quite right in saying that God has revealed himself in the world in such a way that it is obvious that

he exists.

END DISCUSSIONIn addition to that, the next point is that the Scriptures teach that there are three distinct persons in

the Godhead. Let's look at each of the three persons – the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

First, God the Father. The Scriptures teach that God the Father is a distinct person. Let's look at

several passages that indicate that.

First, Matthew 11:27. Jesus says, “All things have been delivered to me by my Father, and no one

knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to

whom the Son chooses to reveal him.” Clearly in this passage Jesus differentiates himself as the

Son from the Father. The Father and the Son stand in relationship to each other – they know each

other and the Son reveals the Father. So clearly the Father is a distinct person here from the Son

who knows the Son, is known by the Son, and is revealed by the Son.

Also, Matthew 26:39. This is Jesus' prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane just prior to his arrest and

trial. It says, “And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, ‘My Father, if it be possible, let

this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt.’” Here Jesus prays to the Father

and asks that he might be spared this terrible suffering. But then he submits his will to the will of the

Father and says, Not as I will, but as thou wilt. Again, showing the distinction of the Father and the

Son and the submission of the Son to the Father's will.[3]

John 14:16-17. We've seen that the Father and the Son are distinct persons. Now in John 14:16-17

we see the Father's distinction from the Spirit. Jesus says,

And I will pray the Father, and he will give you another Counselor, to be with you for ever, even the

Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him; you know

him, for he dwells with you, and will be in you.

Here we have all three persons of the Godhead. The Son is praying to the Father to send another

Advocate – another Counselor – and that will be the Spirit. We have three distinct persons here. The

Father is distinct from both the Son and from the Spirit.

The second point is that not only is the Father a distinct person, but that the Father is God. Again,

this is to state the obvious. Look at Psalm 89:26: “He shall cry to me, ‘Thou art my Father, my God,

and the Rock of my salvation.’” So one of the metaphors under which Israel conceived of the Lord

(Israel's God) is as a heavenly Father. God is the Father of the children of Israel.

One finds this conception of God as Father elsewhere in the Old Testament. For example, Isaiah

63:16: “For thou art our Father, though Abraham does not know us, and Israel does not

acknowledge us; thou, O LORD, art our Father, our Redeemer from of old is thy name.” Here Isaiah

says even if Abraham doesn’t acknowledge us (and Abraham was regarded as the father of the

Jewish nation), Israel or Jacob doesn’t acknowledge us as his progeny, nevertheless the LORD is

our Father. God is the Father of Israel.

In the New Testament, of course, this is the way in which Jesus presents the God of the Old

Testament to his disciples and to the people whom he taught. Matthew 6:9. This is the Lord’s prayer.

He says, “Pray then like this, ‘Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.” Jesus taught

his disciples to pray to God as their heavenly Father and to regard God as their Father.

So the Scriptures teach that God the Father is distinct from the Son and from the Spirit, and that the

Father is God. He is the God of the Old Testament. In fact, this word “God” in the Greek, ho

theos (literally meaning “the God” – the article ho is the masculine definite article) usually, in the New

Testament, refers to God the Father. When the authors of the New Testament say something about

God (ho theos) they are talking about the Father.

For example, Paul’s customary greeting in his letters was to say something like this: “Grace to you

and peace from God the Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ.” So the Father is identified with God –

God the Father.

Compare what Paul says in Galatians 4:4-6:[4]

But when the time had fully come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to

redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you

are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’

Here, again, all three persons of the Godhead are mentioned. When it says “God” sent forth his Son,

“God” sent the Spirit, it means God the Father. This is clear because the Spirit teaches us to cry out

to God, “Abba! Father!” So “God” in the New Testament typically refers to the person of the Father.

But then it says the Father sends the Son (who is Jesus) and then he also sends the Spirit of his

Son into our hearts whereby we cry “Abba! Father!”

It is very interesting to read the New Testament in this light. When you read something about God, it

is typically talking about God the Father.

So the first point is the Father is a distinct person, and the Father is God.

Let’s go to the second point, and that is the Son (or Jesus Christ). Again, the Scriptures indicate both

that the Son is a distinct person and also that the Son is God.

First, let’s look at some verses that indicate that the Son is a distinct person from the Father. Mark

1:9-11. This is the baptism scene of Jesus. Mark says,

In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And

when he came up out of the water, immediately he saw the heavens opened and the Spirit

descending upon him like a dove; and a voice came from heaven, ‘Thou art my beloved Son; with

thee I am well pleased.’

Here we have all three persons of the Godhead mentioned. The Son undergoes baptism by John the

Baptist, the Spirit descends upon him, and then the Father from heaven says, “Thou art my beloved

Son; with thee I am well pleased.” So the Son is clearly distinct from both the Spirit and the Father in

this passage.

John 17:1-5. This is Jesus’ great intercessory prayer for the church:

When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven and said, ‘Father, the hour has

come; glorify thy Son that the Son may glorify thee, since thou hast given him power over all flesh, to

give eternal life to all whom thou hast given him. And this is eternal life, that they know thee the only

true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent. I glorified thee on earth, having accomplished the

work which thou gavest me to do; and now, Father, glorify thou me in thy own presence with the

glory which I had with thee before the world was made.’

Clearly here Jesus is praying to another person. He is not talking to himself. He is praying to the

Father and asking that the Father would glorify himself in the Son and speaking of how the Son has

glorified the Father while on this planet. We have here a clear distinction between the Father and the

Son. The sixteenth and seventeenth chapter in John in general clearly speak of the three persons of

the Godhead. If you want to read these passages (16 and 17) on your own, you will find over and

over again the distinction between the Father, the Son, and the Spirit.[5]

Let’s look at John 7:39 for the distinction from the Holy Spirit. Here Jesus quotes the Scripture, “He

who believes in me, out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water,” and then John says, “Now this

he said about the Spirit, which those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had

not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.” So the distinction between the Spirit and the

Son is clearly drawn here because the Son was with them but the Spirit was not. The Spirit was

someone they would receive in the future after Jesus had departed from them and been glorified. So

although the Son was present with them, the Spirit was not yet present with them in the way that he

would be in his fullness. The Spirit and the Son are distinguished from each other personally.

Finally, John 16:7, Jesus says, “Nevertheless I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go

away, for if I do not go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.”

Here Jesus is speaking of that other Counselor or Advocate that the Father would send. Again, he

distinguishes this person from himself: So long as I am here with you, the Counselor will not come;

but when I go then the Counselor (the Spirit of truth) will be sent to be with you and be in you. So

Jesus distinguishes himself from the Spirit of God who would come after him.

So in the New Testament we have the Son as a distinct person from the Father and from the Holy

Spirit.

Secondly, this person is also God. The Son is God. Immediately this raises a problem. If ho

theos refers to the Father, then how can you say that Jesus is God without implying that he is the

Father, which the New Testament writers did not want to do? They did not believe that the Father

had become incarnate and died on the cross! Or that somehow the Father is no longer in heaven.

So how could the New Testament writers affirm the deity of Christ without saying or implying that he

is the Father? What you find is that the New Testament authors wrangled every way that they could

to assert the deity of Christ without saying that he is God the Father.

A very good popular level book on this is by Michael Green, The Truth of God Incarnate. Green does

an excellent job of showing the extent to which New Testament writers went to affirm in some very

creative ways the deity of Christ without saying that Jesus is ho theos which would be to say he is

the Father. That is precisely why you do not find these sort of flat statements in the New Testament,

“Jesus is God.” Because to say “Jesus is ho theos” would be to say that Jesus is the Father, and this

is not what the New Testament writers wanted to say. So they find every other way conceivable to

express the deity of Christ without coming right out and saying flatly that Jesus is ho theos. Let’s

look at some of these ways in which the deity of Christ is affirmed by New Testament authors.

First, Colossians 1:15-19 and then also 2:9.[6] By way of background to the letter of Colossians,

Paul is faced here with a sort of incipient gnosticism (it would appear) in Colossae. Gnostics held

that the realm of the spiritual is good and the realm of the material is evil. Therefore, God being fully

good cannot have any sort of concourse or relationship with the material world because that would

taint him with evil. So Gnostics developed this system whereby God in his fullness and purity is

utterly diverse and detached from the world. But there emerged from God in sort of descending stair

step fashion quasi-divine beings that increasingly mediate between God and the material world. A

kind of increasing materialization as you descend these stairs. What Paul says in Colossians 1:15-

19 and 2:9 is that this bifurcation between God and the world is utterly misconceived. Paul says that

the whole fullness of deity – that pure God substance – dwells in Christ in the flesh, in bodily form.

Let’s read Colossians 1:15-19. He says of Christ:

He is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation, for in him all things were created in

heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or

authorities – all things were created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all

things hold together.. He is the head of the body, the church; He is the beginning, the first-born from

the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased

to dwell.

Here Paul says this fullness of the Godhead dwells in Jesus Christ. Then in 2:9 he says even more

clearly, “For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily.” That is so un-Gnostic. The fullness of

deity dwells bodily in Christ. This is a statement of the deity of Christ which is, I think, one of the

strongest in the New Testament. Jesus Christ is literally God incarnate. He is the fullness of deity

dwelling bodily in this world – literally God incarnate.

Secondly, New Testament authors used the name of God in the Old Testament in the Greek

– kyrios – for Jesus. In the Old Testament, the name of God – Yahweh – was translated in the Greek

Septuagint (which is the Greek translation of the Old Testament) as kyrios. which means “Lord.” So

Lord or kyrios translates the name of God in the Old Testament – Yahweh. The New Testament

writers call Jesus “Lord” (kyrios) and then they apply to him Old Testament passages about Yahweh!

So while not referring to Jesus as ho theos (which would make him the Father), they do refer to

Jesus as kyrios (Lord) and apply to him Old Testament passages about Yahweh.

Look, for example, at Romans 10:9, 13. Paul says, “If you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord

[kyrios] and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” Here is this

fundamental confession of the New Testament church – Jesus is Lord.[7] Jesus is kyrios. Then in

verse 13 the prooftext is given from the Old Testament. Quoting from Joel 2:32: “For ‘everyone who

calls upon the name of the LORD [Yahweh] will be saved.’” They take this Old Testament passage

about Yahweh – the God of the Old Testament – and apply it to Jesus and says everyone who

confesses that Jesus is Lord will be saved.

This was the most important confession in the New Testament church. Look at 1 Corinthians 12:3 –

“I want you to understand that no one speaking by the Spirit of God ever says ‘Jesus be cursed!’ and

no one can say ‘Jesus is Lord [kyrios]’ except by the Holy Spirit.”

Also look at 1 Corinthians 16:22 where Paul says, “Our Lord, come!” The Greek term there

is maranatha – it is a transliteration into Greek of the Aramaic phrase “marana tha” which means,

“Our Lord, come!” This is the language of the New Testament church at prayer. It goes right back to

the Aramaic that the early followers of Jesus spoke in Jerusalem. And they prayed to Jesus as Lord,

praying “Our Lord, come!” So you have here the original language of the Jerusalem fellowship

praying to Jesus as Lord – the name of God in the Old Testament.

I think you can see how naïve it is when somebody says the New Testament doesn’t say that Jesus

is ho theos or is God. What it does say is Jesus is kyrios which is the Lord – Yahweh – in the Old

Testament.

One last passage that I want to share with you, and this is 1 Corinthians 8:6. This differentiation

between ho theos and kyrios leads to some really strange circumlocutions in the New Testament.

Look at 1 Corinthians 8:6. “For us, there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for

whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we

exist.” Here the Lord and God are differentiated. There is one God, namely the Father, but one Lord,

Jesus Christ, and then they are both described in virtually identical terms. They are the ones through

whom everything exists. The ground of all being. They are both God but they are different persons.

One is called the Father, the other is kyrios.

So chew on that during the week until we meet next time and talk about other creative ways in which

the New Testament authors affirm Christ’s deity.[8]

Trinity (Part 3): The Deity of Christ

Jesus as God in the New Testament

We are continuing our lesson on the doctrine of the Trinity. Before we re-plunge into that subject,

however, I just want to alert some of you to the fact that every Thursday on our Reasonable Faith

Facebook page we are putting up a new feature. It is a short video called “Join Me In My Study.”

That is a double entendre. It is a pun. It is taken in my study at home – Jan does the video herself –

but it is also about my current study of the doctrine of the atonement and gives you a chance to join

with me as I study from week to week and share the things that I am learning in this video. So if you

have the chance to look at the Reasonable Faith Facebook page, you’ll find there posted every

Thursday afternoon this short two-to-five minute video, “Join Me In My Study,” which will, I think,

prove stimulating to you as we struggle to understand this very difficult doctrine of the atonement.

Today, however, we want to look at perhaps the equally difficult doctrine of the Trinity. Last time we

saw that the biblical writers affirm the deity of Christ. In doing so they confronted the difficulty of

saying that Jesus is God but without saying that Jesus is the Father. This is problematic because, as

I shared, the word for God in the Greek – ho theos (ho is the definite article “the” so “the God”

literally) – refers to the Father. The New Testament Christians, while believing that Jesus was deity

(was divine) did not think that he was the Father. That is why you don’t find many statements in the

New Testament that Jesus is ho theos – that Jesus is God. That would be to say Jesus is the

Father. Instead, as we saw, they picked a different term to characterize Jesus, and that was the

term kyrios or Lord. Kyrios is the Greek word that translates the name of God in the Old Testament –

Yahweh. The early Christians, as we saw, would call Jesus “Lord” and they would apply to him Old

Testament passages about Yahweh saying that these are in reference to Christ. So you have the

very odd situation that the New Testament writers, while shunning the label theos for Jesus, do

affirm that Jesus is kyrios. Thus you get these odd circumlocutions such as 1 Corinthians 8:6, “For

us, there is one God the Father, and one Lord, Jesus Christ.” We find in the New Testament that the

writers attempted to do everything they could to affirm the deity of Christ but without saying that he

was the Father.

The third point that we want to come to that illustrates this is the fact that Christ is given the role of

God. To Christ, these authors ascribed roles that are normally reserved for God.

For example, let’s look again at Colossians 1 beginning with verse 15 and following.

He is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation; for in him all things were created, in

heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or

authorities—all things were created through him and for him.

Here the role of being the Creator of all reality other than God is ascribed to Christ.[1]

Similarly, in John 1:1-3 we have the same teaching.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the

beginning with God; all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that

was made.

Here, again, you have ascribed to Christ, the Word of God, the creation of all reality apart from God

himself.

Finally, look at Hebrews 1:1-3a where you have the same teaching:

In many and various ways God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets; but in these last days he

has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created

the world. He reflects the glory of God and bears the very stamp of his nature, upholding the

universe by his word of power.

Here, just like Paul in Colossians 1 and John in John 1, Christ is said to be the creator of the world,

he is the heir of all things just as Paul says he is the first-born of all creation, he reflects the glory of

God and bears the very stamp of his nature. The idea there is like a signet ring which is pressed into

hot wax to seal a document or a letter. Just as that wax bears the imprint of the ring, so Christ bears

the very stamp or imprint of the divine nature. He upholds the universe by his word of power, just as

John says all things were created through him.

So the fact that we have in Colossians 1, Hebrews 1, and John 1 this same teaching about the

cosmic Christ as the Creator and Sustainer of all things apart from God shows that this was the

widespread conviction of the early church. This is not a doctrine taught by some idiosyncratic author.

These are three different authors – Paul, an anonymous author of Hebrews, and then John of the

Gospel of John. All of them teach the same thing with respect to Christ – that he is the Creator of the

world. He plays the role of God in being the source of all reality apart from God.

Finally, sometimes the authors in the New Testament simply lose all restraint, and they come right

out and say, yes, Jesus Christ is ho theos – Jesus is God. The best book that is written on this is by

the very fine New Testament scholar Murray Harris. It is called Jesus as God. The subtitle is The

New Testament Usage of Theos in Reference to Jesus. Murray Harris was my Greek professor and

spent a lifetime studying those passages in the New Testament which refer to Christ as theos. This

is one of the few books that I would recommend to every Christian to read and have on his

bookshelf. Given the centrality of the deity of Christ for Christian monotheism, I think this is really an

indispensable tool. So put that on your gift list or on your book list – Jesus as God by Murray Harris.

What Harris points out is that there are several passages in the New Testament where the best

interpretation – the most plausible exegesis – of these passages is that the New Testament writers

are affirming that Jesus is theos. Let’s look at these passages together.

First would be Hebrews 1:8-12. We already saw in the opening paragraph of the book of Hebrews

that Christ is attributed to the role of God, is said to bear the stamp of the divine nature, he upholds

the universe by his word of power.[2] Now look at what he says in verses 8-12. He says,

But of the Son he says,

‘Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever, the righteous scepter is the scepter of thy kingdom. Thou

hast loved righteousness and hated lawlessness; therefore God, thy God, has anointed thee with the

oil of gladness beyond thy comrades.’

and,

‘Thou, Lord, didst found the earth in the beginning, and the heavens are the work of thy hands; they

will perish, but thou remainest; they will all grow old like a garment, like a mantle thou wilt roll them

up, and they will be changed. But thou art the same, and thy years will never end.’

In verse 8, he says of the Son “thy throne, O God.” The Son is addressed as God – theos. This

sentence could be translated “God is thy throne,” in which case the Son is not addressed as God. It

could be translated in that way. But I think that the translation that I read is preferable because of the

parallelism between verse 8 and verse 10. What you have here is Christ is addressed as

both theos and kyrios. In verses 8, “Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever” and verse 10, “Thou,

Lord, didst found the earth in the beginning.” So the parallelism here of God and Lord, I think, gives

good reason for preferring the translation as I read it from the RSV.

Another passage – Titus 2:13. Here the author says, “we await our blessed hope, the appearing of

the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ.” Look at that phrase “the glory of our great God

and Savior Jesus Christ.” The Greek here literally means “our great God and Savior.” That is whom

we are talking about. It is tou megalou theou kai soteros hemon. Megalou from “mega” – that means

“great.” Theou is the genitive of theos. So this first part is “great God.” And (kai). Soteros – that is

from Savior. Then the possessive pronoun hemon means “our.” The bookends of this phrase are the

definite article tou and then the possessive pronoun “our.” These are, as I say, bookends that frame

the entire phrase that means “our great God and Savior.” Jesus is referred to here as not only our

Savior but also as our God.

A third passage is Philippians 2:5-7. Here Paul says,

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of

God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a

servant, being born in the likeness of men.

Notice what it says here about Christ. It says that in his pre-incarnate state he was in the form of

God. If there is any doubt about what that means, look at the next phrase – equality with God.[3] He

did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped. The word there for “grasped” means

something to be clutched on to and held on to. He was willing to set that aside and to relinquish it

and to humble himself and take the form of a servant. In Philippians 2:5-7 we have this very strong

assertion that the pre-incarnate Christ existed in the very form of God, but he didn’t grasp at or

clutch or try to hold on to that equality with God, but humbled himself and took on human likeness.

Finally, we come to the writings of John where we find several expressions that equate Jesus

with theos.

First would be in the Gospel of John 1:1 which we’ve already read but I want to look at it again: “In

the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” The final phrase

there kai theos en ho logos – the word order is inverted: “and God was the Word.” You might notice

that theos does not have the definite article in front of it. Why is that? Because the definite article

indicates the subject of the sentence. The fact that the article is not here shows that this is the

predicate of the sentence. The sentence should not be translated “and God was the Word.” Rather,

the article indicates that the sentence should be translated “and the Word was God.” In this case the

presence of the article with ho logos shows that that is the subject of the sentence and that theos is

the predicate. We saw that John goes on to then describe Christ as the Creator of the world, of all

things apart from God.

John 1:18: “No one has ever seen God, the only God who is in the bosom of the Father, he has

made him known.” Later copyists were so offended with this idea of the only begotten God that is in

the Greek here that they changed it to Son. Your translations will probably indicate that as an

alternative manuscript reading. Copyists changed “God” to the word “Son” here because they could

not imagine this notion of the only begotten God. Yet, that is what the best manuscripts read. The

earliest manuscripts going back to AD 200 indicate that the original wording of this verse is “the only

begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father he has made him known.” Here John makes quite

clear what he already affirmed in verse 1 that the Word (or Jesus) is, in fact, God.

Turn to the end of the Gospel – John 20:28. Again, these are like bookends. In chapter 1 we saw

that Jesus is affirmed to be God, and now in chapter 20 and verse 28 (at the end of John’s Gospel)

we have Thomas’ confession. In verse 28 Thomas falls on his face at Jesus’ feet and answers him,

“My Lord and my God!” In the Greek: ho theos mou kai ho kyrios mou – literally “the God of me”

(mou is my) and “the Lord of me.” So Thomas is affirming that Christ is both ho theos and ho

kyrios – he is Lord and God. This is the Christological climax of the Gospel of John – Thomas’

confession. It shows that Thomas understands Jesus to be exactly who John in his prologue says

that he is.[4]

Finally, look at 1 John 5:20: “And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us

understanding, to know him who is true; and we are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. This

is the true God and eternal life.” The antecedent for the pronoun “this” is Christ - “in his Son, Jesus

Christ” who is “the true God and eternal life.” John, here again, affirms the deity of Christ.

START DISCUSSION

Student: I was looking for clarity because usually when I read John 1, Hebrews 1, Colossians 1, the

term “through” usually makes Jesus seem almost like a power of God or a utility or a tool of some

kind that God, the Father, used to make. Not that he himself is the Creator. I’m not saying he is not.

I’m saying I am trying to understand how in every one of those passages you used the word

“through.” How does that make him the Creator and not a utility? Do you see what I am saying?

Dr. Craig: Yes, I do. I think we do want to affirm that Christ is the agent of creation. He is the

Father’s agent of creation. That’s right. This is especially evident in this idea of the Logos (or the

Word). This is one of the most interesting examples of the influence of philosophy upon the New

Testament. This idea of the Logos (or Word of God) as the agent of creation – the means or

instrument – by which God created the world is not unique to John or the New Testament. It

characterizes a philosophical school called Middle Platonism which developed during the centuries

after Plato wrote. Middle Platonists believed that the Logos, which is sort of the mind of God in a

way, is the instrument of creation by which God creates the world. Hellenistic Jews – Greek-

speaking Jews outside of Israel – like Philo of Alexandria, Egypt talk a great deal about the Logos as

God’s agent of creation. You read Philo it is almost like reading the prologue of the Gospel of John.

This is a very common idea in the ancient world that the Logos is the means by which God creates

the world. But in Judaism, for Philo as for others, there is a clear dividing line between God who is

alone uncreated and the rest of reality which is created and dependent on him. Things like God’s

Word and God’s Wisdom belong on God’s side of the dividing line. These are personifications of

attributes of God and belong on God’s side of the dividing line between Creator and creature. So, for

example, some New Testament scholars have spoken of Christological monotheism. Christ – the

Word of God – is divine. He is not a creature. He is not a product of any creative act of God. He is on

God’s side of the dividing line between God and creation. So I think you are quite right in saying that

on the New Testament doctrine we should think of the second person of the Trinity as the one

through whom God creates the world. He is the agent of creation.

Student: A couple of months ago I talked about Jehovah’s Witnesses and one of the verses we

talked about is Titus 2:13 where it says our great God and Savior Christ Jesus. All they do is just

switch the comma. They say our great God, and Savior Jesus Christ, splitting those up.[5]  Is a

proper understanding and explanation of the Greek that you went into when you translated that –

would that inherently invalidate that explanation?

Dr. Craig: Right. That is Harris’ point. When you look at the way the Greek reads, the definite article

and the possessive pronoun “our” frame the phrase and show that you can’t put the comma earlier

and say “our great God, and our Savior.” That is not what it means. It is “our-great-God-and-Savior” -

hyphenated if you will. That is because of the framing of the phrase grammatically by the definite

article and the possessive pronoun at the end. It is really wonderful, I think.

Student: When I used to work for Boeing long ago, they tried to get the drawings of the airplanes into

computers so there was a big project that tried to take the existing system and logicalize it and then

use the most efficient logic and then physicalize it with a new technology. In that process, I can

almost understand that God the Father is the logical system, and then God the Son is the

physicalizing of that logic system. Do you think this is a proper analogy?

Dr. Craig: I see the point of the analogy because the word “Logos” is obviously the root from which

we get our word “logical.” It can mean “reason” as well as “word.” For these Middle Platonists this

was the mind of God. The Logos was that intellectual side or aspect of the divine being. They would

compare it to the mind of an architect who was designing a city and then executing his plans. So,

yes, I think that the analogy is apt and does emphasize the logical and rational nature of God and of

the created order. In fact, I was once talking to a Russian Orthodox believer when we were in

Russia. He said that one of the reasons he liked evangelical Protestantism better than Catholicism

was because in Catholicism the Holy Spirit is said to proceed from the Father and the Son. The

Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Logos and then to us. Whereas in Greek Orthodoxy, the

Spirit proceeds directly from the Father without passing through the filter of the Logos. That affords a

more mystical approach to God – a kind of a-rational approach to God that he, as an Orthodox

believer, found very congenial. He didn’t like your analogy of having this be logical – being a rational

expression. He wanted to have a more mystical spirituality that he thought was better in line with the

idea of the Spirit coming directly from the Father, rather than proceeding through the filter of

the Logos. I think that would bear out the point of the analogy that you are making.

Student: I think it is John where there is a passage where Jesus says, “I and the Father are one.” I

think it is interesting in light of this whole discussion. We were talking about Jesus being distinct from

God the Father. To me it seems to be referring to a very special relationship in the same way that we

might talk about oneness in marriage even though we have two individuals. People say that God

invented marriage as a way to help us understand the union the believer has with Christ. Do you

think there is also that aspect that it helps us understand the Trinity in a way?

Dr. Craig: I do think that undoubtedly John thought of Jesus as God and thought that they had a

deep underlying unity of nature and essence. We see that from the other passages.[6] Maybe John

interpreted that saying of Jesus “I and the Father are one” to have a deeper level of significance

that we are one in nature or substance or essence. But on the surface of it at least it just seems to

be that it is expressing we are in harmony with each other – I and the Father are of one mind on this.

He prays that believers would also be one in the same way and one with him and the Father. At

least on the surface, it doesn’t look like this is a deep metaphysical truth about the oneness of the

Son with the Father. But, boy, given what John says elsewhere in his Gospel, it could well be that he

saw that this had a deeper meaning than simply the surface meaning that I and the Father are of

one mind on this or that we agree on this.

END DISCUSSION

The last point I want to make with respect to the affirmation of the deity of Christ in the New

Testament is that there are many, many other passages which we will not take the time to read in

which Christ functions as God. For example, receiving worship. This is unique to God. Only God can

properly receive worship. And yet Christ receives worship in the New Testament. There are certain

Christological titles given to him that seem to imply his deity. For example, “the Son of God.” This

could just refer to his messianic status that he is especially anointed by God. But I think when you

read the New Testament they think of Jesus as God’s Son in a special sense that the Hebrew kings

or holy men could not be said to be God’s sons. Jesus is God’s Son in a special and unique sense

that set him apart. Or Jesus’ claim to be “the Son of Man.” This is a title borrowed from Daniel 7

where Daniel has a vision of this divine-human figure which is called the Son of Man who comes

before the throne of God and God gives to him all authority and power and dominion that all the

people’s of the earth should worship and serve him. This is the title that Jesus applied to himself

most frequently in the Gospels – that he was the Son of Man. The use of the definite article there –

“the” Son of Man – I think shows that he is harking back to Daniel’s vision in chapter 7 of the Son of

Man and not just referring to himself as a human being, as Ezekiel did when he called himself “a”

son of man. Jesus always consistently used the definite article – he is “the” Son of Man.

The point is that these New Testament believers thought that the Jesus of Nazareth who had lived

among them, who had died, who was raised from the dead by God, and ascended into heaven, that

in some difficult to express way he was God himself. Now, he was not the Father. That’s clear. But

he was equal to the Father. That is to say, he was God.

START DISCUSSION

Student: I know the Defenders class does apologetics or the defense of the essentials of the faith

which I take to mean the things that constitute the Gospel. In other words, that is what you have to

believe to have to be saved, and also does theology. Would you see the Trinity as falling under

apologetics or theology? I don’t think when Paul and the apostles spread the Gospel in the book of

Acts they asked people to believe in the Trinity. When you do your apologetics work around the

world, do you typically defend the Trinity? Is that part of apologetics or is that just theology?

Dr. Craig: I think that it is primarily theology that we are doing here. We are examining Christian

doctrine. But I would say given the rejection of this doctrine by, for example, Islam, which is the only

world religion which has arisen with full knowledge of Christianity and in rejection of its teaching, it

becomes imperative that we be able to state, articulate, and defend this doctrine of the Trinity.[7] As

I mentioned as well, it is denied by virtually all cultic or sectarian groups like Jehovah’s Witnesses,

Latter Day Saints, Christian Science, and so forth. Therefore, it becomes an issue of apologetics

because it is a central theological doctrine that is under attack from these various non-Christian

groups. So I would see this as something that is involved in apologetics as well. Perhaps defensive

apologetics rather than offensive apologetics. I don’t think one needs to try to prove that the Trinity is

true. I think what one would do is say, “This is what we as Christians believe,” and then answer

defensively the attacks or criticisms of the doctrine launched by Muslims and others.

Student: So the doctrine is entailed by the essentials?

Dr. Craig: Yes, I think so.

END DISCUSSION

The next person to be looked at is the person of the Holy Spirit. This is a good point at which to

break. We will come back next time and look at the third person of the Trinity – the Holy Spirit.[8]

Trinity (Part 4): The Holy Spirit

The Holy Spirit

We've been looking at the doctrine of the Trinity. We've seen that the New Testament affirms that

the Father is a distinct person from the Spirit and the Son, and that the Father is God. Indeed when

the Scriptures use the word “God” they typically have reference to the Father. Secondly, we saw that

similarly the Scriptures say that Jesus Christ is a distinct person from the Father and the Spirit, and

that Jesus Christ is God not in the sense that Jesus is the Father but in the sense that he is divine.

The New Testament typically refers to Jesus by the Old Testament name of God – kyrios or Lord.

Today we want to turn to the third person of the Trinity – the Holy Spirit. Again, we will see that the

New Testament affirms both that the Holy Spirit is a distinct person from the Father and the Son, and

that the Holy Spirit is likewise God.

First, the Holy Spirit is a distinct person.

Luke 11:13: “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more

will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” Here the Father is spoken of as

distinct from the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is given by the Father to those who ask him.

John 14:26: Jesus says, “But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name,

he will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.” Here all three

of the persons are distinguished. There is the Holy Spirit who is given by the Father in the name of

the Son. The three persons are mentioned in this single saying as distinct persons.

Turn over to John 15:26 – a very interesting verse. Again Jesus is speaking: “When the Counselor

comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the

Father, he will bear witness to me.” Again you have all three of the persons mentioned. There is the

Father, the Holy Spirit who will bear witness to the Son – to Jesus. What is especially interesting

about this verse is that John emphasizes the personhood of the Holy Spirit by using the masculine

pronoun for him even though the word “Spirit” (pneuma in the Greek) is neuter. So when he says

“the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father” he actually violates Greek grammar. Instead of

saying “the Spirit who proceeds from the Father; it will bear witness to me,” he uses the masculine

pronoun “he” - “he will bear witness to me” - in order to underline that we are talking here about a

person, not a thing. The Holy Spirit is a person just like the Father and the Son.

Romans 8:26-27. Paul says,

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the

Spirit himself intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words. And he who searches the hearts of

men knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to

the will of God.[1]

Here Paul describes the intercessory ministry of the Holy Spirit to the Father on our behalf. We don't

know what to pray for many times. We have limited wisdom and insight. But the Holy Spirit

intercedes with the Father on our behalf, and the Father knows the mind of the Spirit and knows how

to answer our prayers because the Spirit intercedes according to God's will. So here you have this

very interesting ministry of the Holy Spirit on our behalf in prayer or intercession before the Father so

that he converts as it were our prayers into God's will.

Matthew 28:19 is one of the famous trinitarian verses in the New Testament where all three of the

persons are mentioned. Jesus says to them, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations,

baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” Here you have this

formula for baptism where all three of the persons are mentioned. Converts to Christianity are to be

baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

2 Corinthians 13:14 also mentions all three of the persons of the Trinity. A wonderful benediction:

“The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with

you all.” Here you have the grace of Christ, the love of God (that is the Father), and then the

fellowship of the Holy Spirit. So all three of the persons are mentioned in this benediction just as they

are in the baptismal formula.

Finally, 1 Peter 1:1-2 also mentions all three of the trinitarian persons.

Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the exiles of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia,

Asia, and Bithynia, chosen and destined by God the Father and sanctified by the Spirit for obedience

to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood, may grace and peace be multiplied to you.

Here you have all three of the persons: God the Father who has chosen and destined the believers,

the Spirit who sanctifies them for obedience to Jesus Christ.

So we have a number of passages, I think, in which the Holy Spirit is distinguished from both the

Father and the Son. He is a distinct person.

Here we also need to make a note about how the New Testament uses terminology. We saw that

very often the word “God” simply refers to the Father. When it comes to the Holy Spirit, Jesus

promised that the Holy Spirit would come in his place and in his name. He would continue to carry

out the ministry of Jesus in the absence of Jesus after Jesus had ascended to the Father. Look at

John 14:26: “The Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach

you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.” Here the Holy Spirit is sent

in the name of Christ, and he serves to bring Christ's teaching to recollection on the part of the

disciples.

Also look at John 16:13-14: Jesus says,[2]

When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own

authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.

He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you.

Here we see the subordination of the Holy Spirit in the plan of salvation to the Son. The Holy Spirit

doesn't speak on his own authority. We've seen rather he comes in the name of the Son – in the

name of Christ – and then he will declare to the disciples the things that he receives – the things

concerning Jesus Christ. The role of the Holy Spirit is that of attesting to and continuing the ministry

of Jesus, acting in his name and authority, and in his place.

So in the New Testament the Holy Spirit becomes so closely identified with Jesus Christ that he is

often spoken of as the Spirit of Christ – not the Spirit of God but the Spirit of Christ, or even

sometimes he is simply called Christ. Look, for example, at the very interesting passage in Romans

8:9-11. Here Paul says,

But you are not in the flesh, you are in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Any one

who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although your

bodies are dead because of sin, your spirits are alive because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him

who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will give life

to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit which dwells in you.

Did you notice the terminology here and the progression? It goes from the Spirit of God to the Spirit

of Christ to simply Christ! If Christ is in you (meaning the Spirit of Christ, that is to say the Spirit of

God, the Holy Spirit). Here you have the identification of the Spirit so completely with Christ that he

is actually referred to as Christ.

So very often today, people will talk about how, in order to be born again, you need to receive Christ

as your Savior, and that it is receiving Christ that will produce the new birth and a relationship with

God. Technically, it is really the Holy Spirit that you receive. When a person places his faith in Christ,

he receives the Holy Spirit who now continues the ministry of Christ and that will produce the

spiritual re-birth – the new birth – that will put him into a relationship with God. But because the Holy

Spirit is so closely identified with Christ, we will often talk about receiving Christ. There is nothing the

matter with that so long as we keep in mind and understand that Christ in terms of his human nature

is with the Father. He is absent from this world. Some day he will return again when Christ comes

back, but in his absence it is the Holy Spirit who continues the ministry to the world and to the church

as well.

When we come to our section on the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, we will look more at the manifold

ministries that this third person of the Trinity has in the world today. But for now we simply want to

note that the Holy Spirit is not the ghost of Jesus Christ. When they talk about the Holy Ghost they

don't mean it is the ghost of Jesus. Nor do they mean by the Holy Spirit some sort of it – a thing, a

neutral force or impersonal object.[3] The Holy Spirit is a person just like the Son and the Father who

is now at work in the world and in the church to carry on the ministry of Jesus.

That is the first point: the Holy Spirit is a person who is distinct from the Father and the Son.

Moreover, to state the obvious, the Holy Spirit is God. The Holy Spirit, like the Father and Son, is

God.

Look at Matthew 12:28 for example. Here it would be easy to find passages attesting to the deity of

the Holy Spirit. We read the words of Jesus: “But if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons,

then the kingdom of God has come upon you.” Here he refers to the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of God

who brings the Kingdom of God to Earth.

Acts 5:3-4 is a very interesting passage from the story about Ananias and Sapphira and God's

judgment upon them in the early church. Here Peter is rebuking Ananias for his deception. Peter

says,

But Peter said, “Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back

part of the proceeds of the land? While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And after it

was sold, was it not at your disposal? How is it that you have contrived this deed in your heart? You

have not lied to men but to God.”

Notice in verse 3, Peter says to Ananias, “why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit,”

and then in verse 4 he says, “You have not lied to men but to God.” So the equation there is made of

the Holy Spirit with God. The Holy Spirit is deity.

Romans 8:9. We have already read this verse: “You are not in the flesh, you are in the Spirit if in fact

the Spirit of God dwells in you.” Here the Holy Spirit is, again, referred to as the Spirit of God.

Finally, 1 Corinthians 6:11. Paul says, “You were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in

the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.”

So the Holy Spirit is God and yet at the same time the Holy Spirit is distinct from the Father and the

Son. We have the same truths about the Holy Spirit that we saw with regard to the Father and the

Son. He is a distinct person and he is divine.

START DISCUSSION

Student: With all of the scriptural evidence, I wonder what sort of response Unitarians and other

skeptics have? Are any of those passages in dispute or maybe have textual variations that they

could try to weasel out?

Dr. Craig: No, I don't think it would be a matter of textual variations as though there were some

manuscripts that read differently. You are just going to have to put a totally different interpretation on

these passages in order to avoid the force of what I've said here. I think probably Unitarianism is

motivated not so much by the unclarity or ambiguity of the text as it is with the doctrine of the Trinity

itself. For some people it just seems incomprehensible to say that one God could be three persons.

So there is some way that you've got to get around this.

Student: Invariably, it costs Jesus' divinity.

Dr. Craig: Unless! Here is a way that it might not. It could mean you sacrifice the divinity of Jesus

and regard Jesus as purely human, right? And God is simply God the Father.[4] But there are today

what are called Oneness Pentecostals. I've actually met folks like this. When we were in France at

French language school, one of the missionaries that was there learning French to go to Africa was

a member of one of these Oneness Pentecostal denominations. What they believed is that God is

one person and that that is Jesus. He affirmed the deity of Christ, but he thought that Jesus Christ is

God – the one person God – incarnate. He denied the Trinity, but he affirms the deity of Christ. It is a

sort of modern version of Modalism as we'll see. But, yeah, it was bizarre.

Student: As you know, Jehovah's Witnesses believe that the Holy Spirit is God's impersonal active

force like electricity or water. One of the ways they sort of try to rebut all these passages that seem

to refer to the Holy Spirit as a “he” or seems to show that he is a person is they are using the

language of personification and they give other examples like how Wisdom and other things that are

impersonal are talked about in the Bible as if they are persons. They will try to use that to explain

away a lot of the passages about the Holy Spirit where it seems to talk about a person. In John's

Gospel they use the gender neuter – they will try to use that to say it shows it is an impersonal force

and then any other thing where it says “he” after that is just personification.

Dr. Craig: Let me just address the second point first, and then go to the first point. In Greek, unlike

English, you have gendered articles – masculine, feminine, and neuter. “Ho” is the masculine; “he” is

the feminine; and “to” is the Greek definite article. It is just like German in this sense. In German you

have der, die, and das as your definite articles. Anybody who has studied German knows how hard it

is to remember all the time what is the gender of the noun that you've just learned and then how to

inflect these articles as they switch cases like accusative, dative, genitive, with the indefinite articles,

and the adjectives after it, and so on. It gets very complicated. There is no significance whatsoever

to the gender of these articles. For example, in German, the word for “little girl” is das mädchen. But

that doesn't mean that people think little girls are neuter objects! It just is a peculiarity of the

language. So you cannot infer anything about the personal character of someone from the gender of

the definite article. Similarly in the Greek, in the Greek the word for Spirit is neuter – to pneuma. It is

like our word “pneumatic” which means air. To pneuma means Spirit or wind. The fact

that pneuma is neuter says nothing about whether the Holy Spirit is a person. In fact, as we saw in

John, he actually violates grammar by not using the relative pronoun that is neuter. He uses the

relative pronoun that is masculine, which I think is very telling.

As to the first point, certainly you are quite right that Scripture will on various occasions use the

literary device of personification. A great example is Proverbs 8 where God's Wisdom is personified

as a lady – Lady Wisdom. She cries out to people to come to me and learn of me and to teach the

young men how to walk in the ways of the Lord and not be foolish. Lady Wisdom there speaks on

behalf of God. It is clearly a literary personification. But I think you can see from the verses that I

read today, none of these have anything to do with literary personification. None of them is like that.

[5] Especially when you have the three listed together – in the name of the Father, the Son, and the

Holy Spirit, or the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. It

is just clearly not a case of literary personification.

Student: The whole Matthew passage – in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit - one

interesting thing James White does is he points out to Jehovah's Witnesses that if you really read

that the way they have to read it, what you are really saying is you have to be baptized in the name

of Jehovah God, Michael the archangel, and an impersonal force.

Dr. Craig: Which is absurd, isn't it? It would put other things on the same level with the Father that

could not conceivably be put on that level.

Student: The Spirit is the only person of the Trinity that is sort of directly named as a Spirit. But of

course God the Father is also spirit, and before the incarnation the Son was a spirit. Is there some

way in which the Holy Spirit is spirit in a different way or is that just the only thing we have left to call

it?

Dr. Craig: Not “it!” See how easily we fall into this? Is that all we have to call it? Call him! I am not

sure why the Holy Spirit is given the name that he is. It could be that it emphasizes an aspect of

God's being, namely, his activity and power. Right from the beginning of Genesis, you have the Spirit

present in the creation narrative where darkness was on the face of the deep and the Spirit of God

was hovering over the face of the waters. It could be that this language of the Spirit and the Holy

Spirit is meant to emphasize the activity of God in the world whereas Father and Son are more

relational terms that would connote love, authority, submission, and love in turn. That is just an off-

the-top-of-my-head speculation. I couldn't say why the Holy Spirit is given the name that he is.

Student: I think it is very interesting this concept of the Trinity for several reasons. One of them being

it is one of the things that makes Christianity unique. No other major faith teaches this. But also I

think it is a good reminder because not only is it kind of like a red flag whenever a religious doctrine

of some kind denies it like Jehovah's Witnesses or Mormons. That raises a red flag. But it is also a

good reminder that however much we know about God, there will always be certain things about him

that are beyond our understanding, and that is the way it should be. I think the doctrine of the Trinity

is an essential doctrine not only because it is taught in Scripture but also because it reminds us that

there will always be certain things about God that will be beyond our comprehension.

Dr. Craig: One of the traditional attributes of God is that God is incomprehensible. When they said

that God is incomprehensible, that did not mean that God is unintelligible or illogical or incapable of

being understood. What they meant was that you can't comprehend God in the sense of taking him

all in. He is infinite, and so even though we gain genuine insight and knowledge about the nature of

God (he is omnipotent, omniscient, morally perfect, eternal, necessary, and a se) yet we cannot

comprehend him in the sense of putting our arms or our mind completely around God and

understanding him exhaustively. I think you are right that the doctrine of the Trinity reminds us of

that. For centuries, Jews worshiped God without any suspicion that God is Father, Son, and Holy

Spirit. This was revealed only in time through his incarnation in the person of Jesus.

Student: Would you comment on John 17:21? Does that help us?[6]

Dr. Craig: We spoke about this the other day. Jesus prays for the believers “that they may all be one;

even as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be in us, so that the world may

believe that thou hast sent me.” I think that this clearly shows the distinctness of the Father from the

Son. I think that does show that. Jesus isn't talking to himself. So I would say this would be a good

verse for showing that the Father and the Son are distinct persons. I am not persuaded that, in and

of itself, it is a good prooftext for the deity of Christ because the sense in which the disciples are in

them (in God the Father, in the Son) doesn't mean that we are God. This would need to be

supplemented with other verses to get the deity of Christ, I think. But at least you do get the

distinctions of the persons here.

Student: I like to think of the Trinity as the three persons reflect the three qualities of God in relation

to us. So the Father would be transcendent. The Son would be personal and relational that way. And

the Spirit would be immanence – in terms of their function.

Dr. Craig: Well, I feel a little uncomfortable when you say the Son is personal because we don’t want

to exclude that from the Father or the Spirit either. The Father loves us. God so loved the world that

he gave his Son. So while I understand what you are saying about the transcendence of the Father,

it seems to me that something different than personal needs to characterize the Son. I would have

thought you were going to say immanence for the Son because he enters into the world – he enters

into human history in a way the Father has not.

Student: The Son calls us brothers and calls us friends.

Dr. Craig: Yes, he shares our human nature.

Student: I would say it is a modality, not modalism.

Dr. Craig: You are certainly right in drawing our attention to the fact that the Son is unique among

the persons of the Trinity in taking on a human nature and in sharing with us our humanity. Neither

the Father nor the Spirit does that. We will talk more about that when we get to the doctrine of Christ

and how we are to understand this notion that Christ has a human nature as well as a divine nature.

Student: In the Old Testament, there are several mentions of the Spirit of God or the Spirit of the

Lord. Would you say that he is identical with the New Testament Holy Spirit, or does the way that he

works in the Old Testament differ because Christ had not come yet?

Dr. Craig: I would be very cautious about making a sort of one-one identification because the

doctrine of the Trinity had not yet been revealed in the Old Testament. So they could use terms with

regard to God without that sort of precision. One example of this would be in Isaiah 6 where Isaiah

says, I saw the Lord in the temple high and lifted up and his train filled the temple. He has this vision

of God. In the New Testament, John says that was the Son – that it was actually Christ. It was a

vision of Christ that Isaiah saw in the temple. But Isaiah wouldn’t know that. So similarly, when they

are talking about the Spirit of the Lord doing this or that in the Old Testament, I think we ought to be

very cautious about reading back into it “this is the Holy Spirit.” It could be, but I think we have to be

cautious.

Student: There always seems to be this confusion like you talked about in the Romans 8 passage

where he goes from the Spirit of God (pneuma theos) to the Spirit of Christ (pneuma christos) then

just to Christ. There seems to be a blurry line there. We talk about as believers “I ask Jesus into my

heart” (like Ephesians 3:17 says) or Revelation 3:20 where we are talking about Jesus is standing at

the door and knocking and we open the door. But at the same time we know it really is not Jesus, it

is really the Spirit that indwells us. How do we get there? How do we get to this idea?

Dr. Craig: I tried to get there by what I said – the Holy Spirit doesn’t act on his own authority.[7] He

doesn’t glorify himself. He doesn’t bring teaching that is apart from Christ. He comes in the place of

Christ to glorify Christ and to bring to the disciples – remember that is what Christ had taught them –

his role is completely subordinate, it seems to me, to Christ's. Therefore he becomes so closely

identified with Christ that someone like Paul can say, But if Christ is in you, you are alive because of

righteousness. But I think that technically if you are doing theology you would want to say it is the

Holy Spirit. But they just become so closely identified with each other the terms can be used

interchangeably. There is nothing the matter with that, I think, so long as we understand what is

going on here.

Student: I think you mentioned this once before that the concept of personhood didn’t arise until the

Council of Nicaea when they were debating and so are we adding semantic difficulties in witnessing

by saying personhood instead of just mentioning Christ, the Holy Spirit, and God the Father?

Dr. Craig: I did say that the modern concept of a person – the psychological concept of a person –

seems to have been originated through these trinitarian debates where the church fathers were

trying to express the distinctness of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in these personal terms. But I

would say that their insights are genuine and that we should appropriate them and not shun such

terminology because you see in Scripture itself, not that the Spirit and the Son are called “persons” -

I didn’t appeal to that kind of language, I appealed to verses in which they interact as persons. The

Son prays to the Father, or the Father says, “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well-pleased.”

There are clearly what we could call “I-thou” relationships here between the persons of the Trinity. A

first-person perspective, a second-person perspective. An “I-thou” relationship. I think this is

captured by the concept of personhood, and therefore we shouldn’t shun that terminology. I think it is

important to embrace it.

END DISCUSSION

Next time we will begin to look at how the early church reflected on this biblical data in order to make

sense of it.[8]

 

Trinity (Part 5): The Historical Survey

The Early Greek Apologists

We've examined the scriptural data concerning the doctrine of the Trinity and saw that the Father,

the Son, and the Holy Spirit are distinct persons and yet each is God. We now want to turn to a

historical survey of how great Christian thinkers have sought to formulate this doctrine into a

systematic package.

We are going to begin with the early Greek apologists of the second century. These were men like

Justin Martyr, Tatian, Theophilus, Athenagoras, and so on. You might not have ever heard of these

men but these were some of the earliest Christian authors writing in defense of the Christian faith

during the second century. Since they wrote in Greek they are known collectively as the Greek

apologists.

These thinkers sought to connect the divine Word of the prologue of John's Gospel – the Logos –

whom John says was in the beginning with God and who was God with the Logos as it plays a role

in the thought of the Jewish Hellenistic philosopher Philo of Alexandria. When we say that Philo was

a Hellenistic Jew what one means is that he was heavily influenced in his thought by Greek thought.

Hellenistic comes from the Greek word hellene which means “Greek.” As a Hellenistic Jew, his

thinking is pervaded by the categories of Greek philosophy. He lived in Alexandria in Egypt during

the same time as the New Testament. He was born in 25 BC and died in AD 40.

The Christian apologists attempted to use the work of Philo in connection with the Gospel of John to

articulate a sort of Logos Christology, or a doctrine of Christ, based on Philo's thinking. For Philo,

the Logos is the reason or the mind of God who created the world and who imbued the world with its

rational structure. Similarly, these Greek apologists also believed that the Father existing alone

before the creation of the world had within himself (immanent within himself) his reason or Word

which existed in him prior to creation. Then somehow this Word proceeded forth from God the

Father rather like a spoken word proceeds forth from someone who utters that word and it becomes

a distinct individual from the Father. It was through this individual – through the Logos – that the

Father created the world, and the Logos then ultimately becomes incarnate as Jesus of Nazareth.

This procession of the Logos from the mind of the Father could be conceived to take place at the

moment of creation when God created the world – that was the moment at which

the Logos proceeded from the Father's mind. Or else, alternatively, it could be thought to be an

eternal procession that never had a beginning. The church fathers were often fond of using the

analogy of the sun's rays proceeding from the sun. As long as the sun exists – if the sun had existed

eternally – the light beams would always be proceeding from the sun. It is not as though they had a

beginning to their procession. It was an eternal procession.

Let me read to you a statement by Athenagoras of this doctrine of the procession of the Logos, or

the Son, from the Father.[1] Here is what Athenagoras writes:

The Son of God is the Word of the Father in Ideal Form and energizing power; for in his likeness and

through him all things came into existence, which presupposes that the Father and the Son are one.

Now since the Son is in the Father and the Father in the Son by a powerful unity of Spirit, the Son of

God is the mind and reason of the Father . . . He is the first begotten of the Father. The term is used

not because he came into existence (for God, who is eternal mind, had in himself his word or reason

from the beginning, since he was eternally rational) but because he came forth to serve as Ideal

Form and Energizing Power for everything material. . . . The . . . Holy Spirit . . . we regard as an

effluence of God which flows forth from him and returns like a ray of the sun.

This is from his treatise entitled A Plea for the Christians, chapter 10.

According to the Logos doctrine, there is only one God but this God is not an undifferentiated unity.

Rather certain aspects of his mind become expressed as distinct individuals.

The Logos doctrine of the Greek apologists thus involves a fundamental reinterpretation of the

fatherhood of God. God is seen not to be merely the Father of all mankind or the Father of Israel or

even simply the Father of Jesus of Nazareth. Rather he is the Father from whom the Logos is

begotten before all worlds. The Logos is begotten of the Father from eternity. So Christ is not merely

the only begotten Son of God in virtue of his incarnation. You might say that the reason Jesus is the

only begotten Son of God is because he was born of a virgin, as in the Gospel of Luke. But what

these Christian apologists were saying is that the Son is begotten of the Father even in his pre-

incarnate deity. He proceeds out of the Father from eternity.

This Logos doctrine of the Greek apologists was taken up into Western theology by the great church

father and theologian Irenaeus in his treatise Against Heresies. Irenaeus identifies God's Word,

or Logos, with the Son and he identifies God's Wisdom with the Holy Spirit. So God's Word is the

Son; his Wisdom is the Holy Spirit. This then will be taken up into Western theology.

For better or worse, like it or not, this is one of the clearest examples of the influence of philosophical

thinking upon theology because this doctrine (which then gets canonized at the Council of Nicaea

later on) is formed out of a kind of synthesis between John's Gospel and the thought of Philo of

Alexandria and the Middle Platonism that he represented.

START DISCUSSION

Student: Would we say God is formless and the Son is the form of God?

Dr. Craig: That is what Athenagoras said, didn't he? He said that the Logos is the Word of the Father

in “Ideal Form and energizing power.” He says that in the quotation I read because he said he came

forth to serve as “Ideal Form and energizing power for everything material.” I take it that what he is

reflecting there is Philo's doctrine of creation.[2] The idea there is that the pattern for the physical

material world is in the mind of God the Creator, specifically in the Logos. Philo compares

the Logos to the mind of an architect who is planning a city and who has the city planned all in his

mind all laid out, and then hires construction workers to actually build the city on the plan that he has

in mind. I suspect that that is what Athenagoras is thinking here in calling the Son the Ideal Form

and the creating power of the physical world. This is, as I say, a kind of marriage of Greek

philosophical thinking with John's Gospel.

Student: Logos means “Word,” right?

Dr. Craig: Yes. Or “reason.” It can mean either one.

Student: So Jesus is the only begotten of the Father because he is the only Word God ever spoke,

or something like that? And the Spirit is God's Wisdom or God's thoughts? You can't really use

reason at the same time if they are different anyway.

Dr. Craig: Obviously these fellows are really struggling here to try to make sense of this. Right?

Because it is not easy to see the difference between reason and wisdom, is it? But what this reflects

is biblical metaphors or personifications. In John's Gospel you have the Logos – the Word – which

was in the beginning with God. Then the Word became flesh and dwelt among us full of grace and

truth, John says. That is where you get this figure of the Logos. Wisdom comes from Proverbs 8

where Wisdom is personified as a woman who goes out into the streets and calls young men to

come to her and learn of her and learn how to live properly. The author of Proverbs encourages his

son – commands his son – to learn of wisdom, to get wisdom. Above all things, get wisdom. Sit at

the feet of lady Wisdom and benefit. This is reflecting these biblical personifications of attributes of

God. It made a nice triad. You've got the Father, you've got his Word, and you've got his Wisdom.

That seemed to them to be a sort of pattern for the Trinity.

Student: When you say “seemed,” you are not saying that all modern scholars see it this exact way?

Because even in the Bible it says who knows God except for his mind? and that we have God's

mind because we have his Spirit. That would make sense if we have not necessarily a physical

manifestation of God but like a spiritual one of his mind – that we have his Spirit. That is elsewhere,

not just in the Gospel of John. What do modern scholars think? Do they agree with this doctrine of

the Trinity?

Dr. Craig: I am glad you asked the question. As we'll see, I think that modern orthodox Christians

would look back on this and see it as a first attempt at crafting a doctrine of the Trinity. Inadequate

but groping, trying to figure out categories in which to express it. It is an attempt to do systematic

theology. You've got this raw biblical data; now how do you make sense of it? Here is the earliest

attempt to do it. I think in the end we'd say this is inadequate. It doesn't rise to the full character of

what we want to say, but it is an attempt.

[The audio skips due to equipment failure.]

. . . the Logos would proceed from the Father at the moment of creation seems unacceptable. Even

they themselves, I think, came to recognize that. With Athenagoras, for example, you have the

procession eternal and not just beginning at the moment of creation as it was for some of them.

Student: It sounds like Athenagoras' statement is tying into Plato's Forms. There are the Forms –

they came from God.

Dr. Craig: That is Athenagoras' view, and that is Philo's view.[3] What you are mentioning is that in

Plato's (who you will remember as one of the greatest of the ancient Greek philosophers) thought,

this world is merely a shadow or a copy of a kind of ideal world in which perfect geometrical shapes

exist – like triangles and circles. In this physical world there are no perfect triangles or circles.

[At this point in the lecture, the power goes out in the lecture room.]

This is Plato's parable of the cave where he says people dwell in this shadowy world and need to be

enlightened by getting in contact with the Forms.It is Platonic in the sense that Plato thought these

Forms existed and the physical world is patterned on these Forms. But Plato didn't think these

Forms were created by God. On the contrary, he thought that God looked to the Forms and then

built the world on that model. They were independent of God. They were uncreated reality, and God

simply created the physical world on the pattern of the Forms.

Well, for a Jewish monotheist like Philo, that was simply unacceptable. You couldn't have this

independent, non-created reality existing along side of God. So he moved the Forms into the mind of

God as God's ideas. Then it was on the basis of his own ideas that like an architect God planned

and then built the physical world. You find this in the Greek apologists. Where they make an

advance over Philo, I think, is that they think this Logos is not simply immanent in the mind of God

(like the reason of an architect) but that somehow he comes forth from him as a separate individual.

The Logos emanates out of God and becomes, as it were, another person. This way they get a

multiplicity of persons who are divine. It is not a full trinitarian doctrine such as we'll find later on, but

they are struggling to express it.

Student: I think the God that they said looked at the Forms were the little gods. [inaudible]. There

were Greek philosophers that said the little gods are not the real God – there is one God.

Dr. Craig: OK. Fair enough. In Plato's Timaeus, he refers to this God who looks to the Ideal Forms

and creates the world as a demiurge. This demiurge is, as you put it, a kind of lowercase-g god. But

then where is God in Plato's system? The most you could get would be the Form of The Good,

which is the highest Form. The Good. But the problem there is The Good is not a person. The Good

is not a concrete reality. The Good is this abstract Form, and so it is not really God even though it is

this sort of ultimate reality in Plato's view. The advance of people like Philo over Plato, I think, is that

they say that this world of the Forms doesn't exist external to God. It exists in the mind of God, and

the Logos who creates the world is not some sort of lower-class demiurge but the Logos is God

himself.

Student: I wanted to go back to the word itself – Logos. It seems to me to be a really thick word.

There is not a really good English translation. Is that safe to say?

Dr. Craig: What I would say is this. It is a rich – or as you put it, a thick – word. It can be translated

by different English words. It is not that we fail to have English words to express it, but rather it has

multiple meanings. There are other terms like this that are used in Scripture. I've been studying one

this week.[4] The term dikaiosune in the Greek. Dikaiosune can mean either righteousness or

justice. So when Paul talks about the righteousness of God in Romans 3, this can also mean the

justice of God. So you kind of have a pun in Romans 3:26. Paul says, “God is just and the justifier of

him who has faith in Christ Jesus.” He is both just and the justifier. But at the same time, he talks

about God's righteousness and how this is given to us in Christ. So the word is multivalent. It think

that is also true of Logos. The word Logos is multivalent. It has different meanings. The context will

determine the meaning that it has in that context. So when we read these quotations in English from

these Greek apologists and we see words like “reason” or “Word” you have to understand that the

English translators have chosen an English word that they think best captures the original in that

context. But for a Greek reader, an original reader, of that, this may be a multivalent concept that

has a richer meaning than we would realize.

Student: If you were talking to a Greek person and you said “Logos means Word or Reason” I feel

like they would always say, “Close, but not exactly.” There is a nuance there that I don't know . . . we

have to approach it from many different angles but that word to a real Greek means something that I

don't think we . . . we have to really struggle with translating it.

Dr. Craig: Logos often does just mean “word.” So, right, I would just reiterate what I've just said. It is

a multivalent term; it is a rich term, and the nuances might be lost on us through our English

translations.

Student: I noticed when they described the Logos – the Greek apologist – they used words like

“power” and what not. It sounds very impersonal. Did they believe that the Logos is a distinct

person? How far were they in that department?

Dr. Craig: OK. I'm glad to have these questions, because you are pressing these same issues that I

am wondering about. That is why I said that the Logos comes forth as a distinct – I use the word

“individual.” I didn't use the word “person.” It is not entirely clear yet that they had the modern

concept of a person, as a sort of self-conscious individual. Maybe they did, but it is just not

altogether clear. I think it becomes clear when we get to these later thinkers, as we'll see in our next

section. But it does make you wonder to what extent did they think of the Logos as a distinct person

from the Father and the Spirit as a distinct person. How could the mind of the Father be a different

person than the Father? If the mind of the Father proceeded out, then what happened to the Father's

mind? Did he lose his mind? [laughter] You don't want to say that! Again, as I said before, these are

groping attempts to try to express what we've seen in the New Testament.

Student: I say that because the Logos is obviously Jesus because it says the Word became flesh,

and Jesus is clearly a person – somebody who has a will and speaks and all that. So it would seem

would the Logos have to be a person?

Dr. Craig: Great question, and not always clear I would say.

Student: Can you shed some light on in what ways did these philosophers properly understand or

misunderstand John's use of Logos in his Christology in the Gospel?

Dr. Craig: That is a really tough question because we don't know what really lies behind

John's Logos doctrine in his opening chapter of his Gospel. I've done considerable study of this in

connection with my work on God's aseity. It seems that John himself is reflecting the same tradition

that you have embodied in Philo of Alexandria.[5] The idea of the Logos as a creative principle of

God's mind wasn't original to Philo. He expresses it clearly, but it is not his own idea. It is

characteristic of what is called Middle Platonism. This Middle Platonism is what I talked about a

moment ago when I said that these Middle Platonists took the Platonic realm of the Forms and put it

in the mind of God as his ideas. It may well be that this is what John is reflecting – this kind of Middle

Platonism – because so much of his vocabulary and emphases are to be found in Philo. The

similarities – the parallels – are just stunning. They are really striking. But, at the end of the day, it is

hard to know. I would say that most New Testament scholars would say that if John didn't know

Philo's writings that at least the author of the prologue to John's Gospel comes out of the same

Hellenizing Jewish tradition as Philo – this Middle Platonic view of thinking of the Logos as sort of

the mind of God and the agent through whom God creates the world. What is striking about John,

which Philo could never have said, is that the Logos became flesh and dwelt among us as a

historical person. That is where John breaks the categories so to speak and where we need to

recognize John's originality and contribution. He does think of the Logos as not some impersonal

principle; he thinks it's Christ who has become incarnate for our benefit.

Student: It is interesting that the Platonic philosophy had an influence here. But where it is quite

different – wasn't Plato the one who said the flesh was evil and the spirit was good?

Dr. Craig: I think you are thinking of Gnosticism.

Student: But isn't that based on Platonic philosophy though?

Dr. Craig: It is similar. Gnosticism had the idea that the world of the material and physical is

positively evil, and it is the spiritual realm that is good and pure. I think that would be inaccurate to

represent Plato that way. What Plato did think is that this Ideal Realm is more real than this realm.

He thought that this physical world is just a sort of shadowy existence that isn't really very

substantial. The real world is this Ideal Realm. But I don't think that he would therefore characterize

the physical world as being evil in a way that the Gnostics did.

Student: In talking about systematic theology, sometimes some Christians get really defensive or

scared about talking about philosophy and bringing that into theology. But it seems to me John is

using a Hellenistic style of philosophy in the way he wrote his Gospel. Would you say that you can't

separate the philosophy of what even a person like John, who is Jewish, is using in his own writing

of the Gospel itself?

Dr. Craig: You are exactly right. I said that the Greek apologists' use of Philo was a great example of

the influence of philosophy upon theology. But what you rightly said is, Wait a minute! This has

already happened in the Gospel of John! Already in John's prologue you have the author of the

fourth Gospel adopting these Middle Platonic categories talking about the Logos. This is not from the

Old Testament or Jewish Wisdom literature. John's doctrine originates in this sort of Middle

Platonism. So I think you are quite right in saying that already in the pages of the New Testament we

see the interplay of philosophy and theology together in formulating doctrine.

END DISCUSSION

Next week we will turn to another primitive Christology.[6]

Trinity (Part 6): Historical Survey (2) | Modalism

Modalism

Last time we were together we talked about the Logos Christology of the early Greek apologists.

This doctrine was taken up into Western theology through the church father Irenaeus.

During the following century – the third century – a very different conception of the divine

personages emerged in contrast to the Logos doctrine of the Greek apologists. People such as

Noetus, Praxeus, and Sabellius enunciated a quite different view of God – a unitarian view of God –

which goes under various names: Modalism, Monarchianism, or Sabellianism.

According to this view, the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit are not distinct persons. There is only

one person who is God. Either it was the Father himself who became incarnate and suffered and

died on the cross, the Son was at most the human side of the Father so to speak – the human face

of God the Father. Or, alternatively, the one God sequentially assumed three roles in his relationship

to humanity: first, the Father; then the Son, and then the Holy Spirit.

One of the finest treatises written against this early Modalism is by the North African church father

Tertullian who wrote a treatise called Against Praxeas (a refutation of the views of Praxeas). This is

very much worth reading today. If you want to read a treatise by one of the early church fathers, I

think this is the one that I would probably recommend. Tertullian's Against Praxeas is a brilliant piece

of work. Extremely influential in his treatise, Tertullian brought greater precision to many of the ideas

and also introduced much of the terminology that would later be adopted in the creedal formulations

of the doctrine of the Trinity. Indeed, the word trinitas or “Trinity” stems from Tertullian.

Tertullian was very anxious to preserve what was called the divine monarchy, which was a word

used by the early Greek apologists for monotheism. To speak of the monarchy of God was to speak

of the only true God – the one God. Monotheism. While he wanted to insist upon the truth of the

monarchy, Tertullian also wanted to emphasize what he called the divine economy – a word which

he borrowed from Irenaeus. The word “economy” in reference to God seems to have reference to

the way in which the one God exists. There is one God but he doesn't exist just as one person as the

Monarchians or the Modalists thought. He says the error of the Monarchians was “thinking that one

cannot believe in one only God in any other way than by saying that the Father, the Son, and the

Holy Spirit are the very selfsame person.” But Tertullian thinks that while all are one by unity of

substance he goes on to say,

the mystery of the economy . . . distributes the unity into a Trinity, placing in their order the three

persons – the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit: three, however, not in condition but in degree; not

in substance but in form; not in power but in aspect; yet of one substance, and of one condition, and

of one power, inasmuch as He is one God, from whom these degrees and forms and aspects are

reckoned, under the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

On Tertullian's view, there is one God – one substance that God is – but then this is distributed into

this economy of three persons each of whom is God.[1]

When Tertullian says that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are all one substance, he is using

the word “substance” in both of the senses that the Greek philosopher Aristotle employed that term.

On the one hand, according to Aristotle, a substance is just any individual thing. Any thing that exists

is a substance. So this table is a substance. I am a substance. That chair is a substance. The plant

is a substance. They are just individual things. He would say there is one thing which is God. There

are not three gods. These three persons are one thing, namely, God. But the other sense in which

Aristotle used the word “substance” was to designate the essence of a thing or its very nature. So to

talk about substance in this sense was to talk about those properties that go to make a thing what it

is. So, for example, a chair has a different essence or nature than a table does or than a horse does.

They have different natures or different essences. That is why they are different things – because

they have different essential properties. Tertullian wants to affirm that the three persons also share

the same essential divine nature. They are one thing – God – but they also share the same nature.

In responding to the prooftext that the Monarchians often used – John 10:30, “I and my Father are

one” - Tertullian points out that the fact that you have here a plural subject “I and my Father” and a

plural verb “are” indicate that there are two entities – namely, two persons. But he says the predicate

here – “one” – is an abstract (not a personal) noun. In Latin, it is the word unum, not unus – not a

personal pronoun but an abstract pronoun. “I and my Father are one” – unum. He comments,

Unum, a neuter term, . . . does not imply singularity of number, but unity of essence, likeness,

conjunction, affection on the Father's part, . . . and submission on the Son's. . . . When he says, “I

and my Father are one” in essence – unum – He shows that there are two, whom He puts on an

equality and unites in one.

So in the prooftext, “I and my Father are one,” you have a multiplicity of persons (two distinct

persons) but a unity of essence. “I and my Father are one” - not one person, but one in essence.

They have the same nature.

When Tertullian says that the monarchy is distributed into the economy in three forms or aspects, he

is not affirming Modalism. Rather, what he is saying is that the diversity of the persons all share the

same nature. They are one substance, one thing, having one nature.

It has become conventional wisdom today to say that when these church fathers like Tertullian said

that God is three persons they did not mean this in the modern psychological sense of a “person” -

as someone who is a center of a self-consciousness - “I.” Rather they just meant to say there are

three individuals but not three persons in this psychological sense. But I think when you read

Tertullian himself what you'll find is that that claim is, shall we say, greatly exaggerated. It seems to

me that Tertullian does think of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit as three self-conscious

persons.[2] For example, in a remarkable passage which is aimed at illustrating the doctrine of the

Son as the immanent Logos in the Father's mind (remember, that is what the Greek apologists

believed – the Logos was originally immanent within the Father as the Father's reason or mind),

Tertullian invites the reader, who he says is created in the image and likeness of God and so in that

sense is like God, to think about the role of reason in the reader's own self-reflective thinking. He

says,

Observe, then, that when you are silently conversing with yourself, this very process is carried on

within you by your reason, which meets you with a word at every movement of your thought, at every

impulse of your conception.

Tertullian is thinking here of your own reason as a kind of dialogue partner that you engage with in

self-reflective thought. I think probably everyone of us has had that experience – a sort of talking to

himself where you are sort of engaged in this self-reflective conversation with yourself. Tertullian

says that when we do that this reason within you meets you as a sort of self-conscious person. He

says in a certain sense the word is a second person within you through which you generate thought.

Of course Tertullian realizes that no human being is literally two persons. But he says when you

carry on this conversation with yourself, it is sort of like two persons within you. He says when it

comes to God, this is much more fully transacted in God because God contains his

immanent Logos even when he is not speaking – when he is silent.

Again, when Tertullian wants to prove that the Father and the Son are personally distinct from each

other, he quotes passages from the Scriptures in which the Father and the Son use first person and

second person pronouns in dialogue with each other. For example, he quotes Psalm 2:7[3] where

God says, “Thou art my beloved son, today I have begotten thee.” Quoting this verse, Tertullian says

to the Modalist, “If you want me to believe Him to be both the Father and the Son, show me some

other passage where it is declared, ‘The Lord said unto himself, I am my own Son, today I have

begotten myself.’” And, of course, there is no such passage. He quotes numerous passages which,

through the use of these personal pronouns, shows the I-thou relationship in which the Father and

the Son stand to each other. An I-you relationship – each one uses the appropriate first-person

pronoun in talking to the other as a person.

He challenges the Modalist to explain how a being who is absolutely one and singular can use first-

person plural pronouns like “Let us make man in our image.” I think very clearly Tertullian thinks of

the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit as well as capable of using personal pronouns by means of

self-reference and addressing each other using second-person pronouns “you” which shows that

they are self-conscious persons. Tertullian concludes, “in these few quotations the distinction of

persons in the Trinity is clearly set forth.”

I think it is very difficult to avoid the conclusion that Tertullian does believe that the persons of the

Trinity are three distinct self-conscious individuals.[4]

The only qualification that might be made to this picture lies in a vestige of the apologists'

old Logos doctrine in Tertullian's theology. He not only accepts their view that there are relations of

derivation between the persons of the Trinity – that the Son, for example, is begotten from the Father

– but he also holds to the view that these relations are not eternal. He calls the Father “the fountain

of the Godhead.” He says, “the Father is the entire substance, but the Son is a derivation and portion

of the whole.” The Father, he says, exists eternally with the Logos immanent within his mind. But

then at the moment of creation the Logos proceeds from the Father and becomes his only begotten

Son through whom the world is created. So the Logos becomes the Son of God only when he first

proceeds from the Father as a substantive being.

Tertullian is very fond of using analogies like the sunbeam emitted by the sun or the river that flows

out of the spring to show the oneness of the Son with the Father from whom he proceeds. But he

didn't think of this procession as eternal as later theologians were to do. He thinks of this as

something that starts at the moment of creation. The Son, on his view, is “God of God.” A phrase

that will later be incorporated in the Nicene creed. He is God of God. Similarly, the Holy Spirit also

proceeds from the Father through the Son.

If I understand him right it would seem that Tertullian would consider the Son and the Spirit to be

distinct persons only after their procession from the Father. Before that (as it were, before the

moment of creation), they are merely immanent within the Father – he is the fountainhead from

which they flow. But they are not at that point personally distinct. Nevertheless, once

the Logos proceeds from the Father and the Spirit from the Father and the Son, they clearly are then

distinct persons from that point on.

Through the efforts of church fathers like Tertullian, Origen, Novatian, and many others, the church

came to reject Modalism as a proper understanding of God and to affirm that there are three distinct

persons within the Godhead who are called Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

During the following century the church would be confronted with a challenge from the opposite end

of the spectrum – Arianism – which affirmed the personal distinction of the Father and the Son but

denied the deity of the Son. As we'll see, whereas the Modalists affirmed that the Father, Son, and

Holy Spirit are all God but not distinct persons, Arius affirmed that the Father, Son and Spirit are

distinct persons but they are not all God. Only the Father is God; the Son is, in fact, a creature who

was made by God.

START DISCUSSIONStudent: This is a topic that I spend a lot of time reflecting on. Sometimes the response that I get

from people – because I write about this topic – is just kind of theological nitpicking because God is

either three manifestations or three persons. It doesn't really matter. They believe Jesus is God

anyway. How would you respond to that? Do you regard this as very important? Central? The Trinity

versus Modalism?[5]

Dr. Craig: It is important to understand that the Modalists at least did affirm the deity of Christ, unlike

Arius. It does seem to me that Arius’ error is more serious because on his view the Son is just a

creature which would make worship of him idolatrous. With regard to Modalism, I think there it simply

can't do justice to the teaching of Scripture. They would have to say that it is the Father who became

incarnate and suffered and died on the cross. That is clearly not right because Jesus during his

lifetime is able to pray to and depend on the Father. He is guided by the Holy Spirit. Modalism, it

seems to me, just can't do justice to the biblical text which shows that these persons are three

distinct members of the Godhead and that we shouldn't confuse them with each other by thinking

that the Father died on the cross. Keeping the persons of the Trinity straight, I think, will have

practical importance for our devotional life, our Christian life. For example, Jesus taught us to pray to

the Father in the name of the Son and then through the power of the Holy Spirit. By keeping these

persons of the Trinity straight it can help us to order our devotional lives in a proper way; for

example, in prayer.

Student: How did the Modalists of the day exegete passages where Jesus is praying to the Father or

when it is very clear (at least to me) they are distinct persons?

Dr. Craig: It seems that the best they could do would be to say in the incarnation Christ had a human

side or a human nature or aspect and that it is the human nature or aspect that is praying to the

divine nature or aspect. He really is talking to himself in these prayers, but they would try to make

sense of it by saying it is the human side talking to the divine side.

Student: That doesn't make any sense to me unless they are two different persons.

Dr. Craig: I'm just trying to answer how they would say it. But I think you are quite right. It is a

completely inadequate answer to deal with the prayer life of Jesus, for example, when he says to the

Father, “Not my will but thine be done” and so forth.

Student: I had a question about these heresies we are going over. I understand Modalism to be a

different heresy from Monarchianism. Is that correct or not?

Dr. Craig: Not in my understanding. My understanding is that these are both unitarian views of God.

They might have different explanations of how it is that God appears to be three. Remember I said

they might say that Jesus is the sort of human nature of God, or they might say, no, this is God

playing three sequential roles. You could have different accounts of how the appearance of

threeness arises, but they would be one in their fundamental conviction that God is one person and

that the appearance of threeness is just that – it is merely an appearance, it is not real.

Student: When I think of Monarchianism I was thinking more along the lines that whoever came up

with the heresy saw the Trinity as of all the same substance however there is a subordination in the

Trinity – a subordination of the Son to the Father and the Spirit to both of them.

Dr. Craig: That is not my understanding of Monarchianism. In one sense that sounds almost

Orthodox because in the Orthodox view you have this notion of the Son being begotten from the

Father – the Father is the sort of fountainhead from which the Son proceeds. He exists because of

the Father. Then the Spirit from the Father and the Son. There is that kind of dependence. You are

right. You don't want to say it is subordination in the sense of inferiority because they affirm that they

all have the same nature. But there is a kind of dependence. Whether or not that is an acceptable

subordination, I think, is a matter of real debate.[6]

Student: I would just say that in the economy of redemption there is subordination but that is

different than what we are talking about.

Dr. Craig: I agree. What you are talking about there is the difference between what is sometimes

called the ontological Trinity and the economic Trinity. The ontological Trinity would be the Father,

Son, and Holy Spirit as they are in themselves – God in himself. There, there is no subordination in

the sense of inferiority or subordination of one person to another. But in the economic Trinity this is

how the Trinity engages humanity for the plan of salvation. There, there is subordination because

the Son submits to and does the Father's will. The Holy Spirit does not glory himself; he glorifies the

Son and speaks whatever has been told to him to be said. There, in the economic Trinity, you have

a kind of subordination but it is not ontological. It would be the sort of subordination that you would

have in a marriage relationship where the wife and the husband are equal before God but for the

economy of the family the wife submits to the loving leadership of her husband. That doesn't imply

her inferiority in any way. It is a purely economic sort of submission.

Student: They would say that there is no distinction of persons, right? It is all one substance but

there is no distinction of persons. How would that translate into the fact that all humans bear God's

image? Even though we all share the same nature but we are all not the same person. Obviously

there is a multiplicity of human persons around, but we all share one thing in common – that is our

humanity. We all have the same imago Deo, but there is a diversity of persons nevertheless. How

would they go about explaining how the imago Deo expressed?

Dr. Craig: The idea would be that human beings have the same nature. Aristotle said the nature of

humanity is to be a rational animal. We have a biological body but a rational soul. When we have

three instances of that nature you have three different individuals. We have Adam, John, and

George – those each have the same fundamental human nature but each one exemplifies that

nature or instantiates that nature as an individual man. We will see that that actually becomes very

important in these trinitarian debates over Arianism. I don't think that is a problem for the unitarian.

The unitarian would say that God is one person and each one of us is one person. In that sense we

are like God. We are made in his likeness and image. We are each one person. What the trinitarian

would say is that we do not share God's nature insofar as the fact each of us is one person and not

three persons.

Student: I was also curious about how the Modalist deals with Jesus referring to the Holy Spirit when

he says, I'm leaving but I'll send a Comforter in my place. How do they deal with that when there is

supposed to be another.

Dr. Craig: Here could be what they would say: Jesus says, Alright, the Holy Spirit is going to come

after I leave. He exists the room, changes clothes, and comes back in as the Holy Spirit. It is really

just role playing. It is masquerade really. Where it gets difficult is where you have the three persons

at the same time like at the baptism of Jesus where the Father says, “This is my beloved Son with

whom I am well pleased” and the Spirit descends upon the Son in the form of a dove. That is where

it is difficult for the Modalist to say these are three sequential roles played by the one person

because they are all there interacting with each other at the same time.

END DISCUSSIONWe will now draw it to a close. Next week we will look at the challenge that the church faced in

Arianism and how this lead to the Council of Nicaea and the codification of the doctrine of the Trinity.

[7]

Trinity (Part 7): Historical Survey (3) | Arianism

Arianism

In our study of the Trinity we’ve looked so far at the Logos Christology of the early Greek apologists

and then at Modalism. Now we come to the subject of Arianism.

In the year 319 a presbyter of the church of Alexandria, Egypt named Arius began to propagate his

doctrine that the Son is not of the same substance as the Father. You will remember that according

to Tertullian and other church fathers who opposed those who denied the full deity of Christ that

Christ is of the same substance or essence as the Father and therefore fully divine. Arius denied that

Christ is the same substance as the Father. Rather, he said that Christ had been created by the

Father before the beginning of the world. This episode marked now the great trinitarian controversy

that would occupy the church until the end of the century and give us the Nicene Creed and the

Constantinopolitan Creeds as a result.

You will remember that Tertullian thought that the Logos was begotten by God the Father at the

beginning of creation. By contrast, Alexandrian theologians like Origen held that the begetting of the

Son (or the Logos) from the Father did not have a beginning. Rather it was an eternal begetting that

had always taken place. Arius thought that the reason that the orthodox theologians were so

opposed to his view that the Son had a beginning was because he affirmed that the Son did not exist

eternally. In his letter to Eusebius of Nicomedia he affirmed, “The Son has a beginning but God is

without beginning.” He thought this is why the orthodox theologians were so opposed to him,

because he affirmed that the Son had a beginning. But that wasn’t correct. Tertullian himself thought

that the Logos was begotten at a certain point in time prior to the creation of the world. What the

theologians objected to about Arius’ view wasn’t so much that the Son had a beginning; what they

objected to was that this beginning was not a begetting but it was in fact a creation and that the Son

was therefore a creature. Arius denied that the Logos even pre-existed immanently within the Father

prior to the creation of the world. There wasn’t even an immanent Logos or Word or Reason within

God prior to the creation of the world. So the beginning of the Logos was not from the substance of

the Father; the Father created the Logos out of nothing. He created the Son and therefore the Son

was a creature. This is what the orthodox theologians really found offensive.

Athanasius, who became the bishop of Alexandria and was a champion of Nicene orthodoxy,

protested that on Arius’ view God the Father existing without the Son lacked even his Word and his

wisdom. He didn’t have those immanent qualities within him. This is blasphemous. This is from

his Orations Against the Arians [1.3.9] – he says on Arius’ view the Son is “a creature and a work,

not proper to the Father’s essence.” This was simply blasphemy to affirm that the Son is a work and

a creature, not belonging to the essence of the Father.

In the year 325 the Council of Antioch condemned Arius’ views.[1] They condemned anybody who

says that the Son is a creature or that the Son is originated or created or made or not truly an

offspring – that is someone who is begotten, not made. They condemned anyone who said that at

one time the Son did not exist. Later in that same year, 325, the emperor Constantine convened an

ecumenical council at Nicaea. That is to say, this was not a local council. This was a universal

council that drew bishops from all across the Roman Empire to convene at Nicaea and pronounce

on this doctrine of Arius.

The Council of Nicaea then propagated the creedal formulation of trinitarian belief in the Nicene

Creed. It is worth mentioning that the Arians who were represented at the Council were very few.

There were probably only six Arian bishops present at the Council. There were thirty bishops who

were squarely in Athanasius’ camp – in the orthodox camp. The vast majority belonged to this sort of

confused center camp which had around 200 bishops in it and they didn’t know what was going on.

They couldn’t understand this debate. Then there were the Semi-Arians of whom we will speak later

– probably around seventy to ninety of the bishops were in this sort of Semi-Arian camp. What they

wanted to say was the Son isn’t the same substance as the Father but he is similar in substance to

the Father. A sort of quasi-divine as it were.

The Athanasian camp carried the day and persuaded the vast majority of the bishops to condemn

Arianism and to propagate the statement of the Trinity that we confess today.

Let’s read through this [the Nicene Creed] and then we will comment on it.

We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of all things, visible and invisible;

And in one Lord Jesus Christ the Son of God, begotten from the Father, only-begotten, that is, from

the substance of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten not

made, of one substance with the Father, through Whom all things came into being, things in heaven

and things on earth, Who because of us men and because of our salvation came down and became

incarnate, becoming man, suffered and rose again on the third day, ascended into the heavens, and

will come to judge the living and the dead.

And in the Holy Spirit.

So we believe in one God the Father, one Lord Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Spirit – all three

members of the Trinity.

Then there are affixed to the Creed these condemnations of Arian propositions:

But for those who say ‘there was when he was not’ and ‘before being born he was not’ and that ‘he

came into existence out of nothing’ or who assert ‘the Son of God is from a different hypostasis [we

will say something about that later] or substance, or is created, or is subject to alteration or change’

– these the Catholic Church anathematizes.

These Arian propositions are condemned in this suffix to the creed.

Several features of this statement deserve comment.[2]

1. Notice that the Son, and I think by implication the Holy Spirit, is declared to be of the same

substance as the Father. The Greek word for this is homoousios. Homo, the word for

“same;” ousias from the word for “substance.” So the Father and the Son (and I think by implication

the Holy Spirit) are declared to be of the same substance. That is to say they are of the same

essence. They have the same divine nature. This is to say that the Son and the Father both

exemplify the divine nature. Therefore the Son cannot be a creature as Arius claimed. Arius wanted

to say that the Son has a different nature – heteroousios –  from the Father. Hetero meaning

“different than,” as in the word “heterosexual” (opposite sex). Heteroousios a different substance;

whereas the orthodox affirmed the same substance, the same essence.

I mentioned the Semi-Arians who were present at the Council. They were championing the

word homoiousios to describe the relation of the Father and the Son meaning that they were similar

in essence. They feared that by saying they were the same substance this would imply Modalism –

that there wasn’t a diversity of persons in the Godhead. So they wanted to say he is not of a different

essence or substance but he is of a similar substance. There was a world of difference that lay in

this single iota that distinguished homoousios from homoiousios. On homoosuios, the Son is fully

divine. He is God. On homoiousios he isn’t divine. He doesn’t have the divine essence. He is simply

similar to the Father and therefore just as much as the Arians they affirmed that the Son is in fact a

creature and a work, which was blasphemy.

2. Notice that the Son is declared to be begotten not made. The creed says that he is God from God,

light from light, true God from true God, begotten, not made. This is the vestige of the

old Logos Christology of the Greek apologists which held that the Logos is begotten in his divine

nature from the Father, but not created.

Notice that this is said with respect not to Christ’s human nature but with respect to his divine nature.

In his very divinity he is begotten from the Father. Therefore just as products of natural generations

which are begotten share the same nature as their parents – cats beget cats, dogs beget dogs,

people beget people – so the Son and the Father share the same divine nature because the Son is

begotten from the Father, not created by the Father.

The Nicene statement is based upon a draft of a creed that was proposed by Eusebius of Caesarea.

This isn’t Eusebius of Nicomedia to whom Arius wrote that I quoted before. This Eusebius is from the

coastal town in Israel called Caesarea. You can still visit the ruins of this town today on a trip to

Israel and see the ruins of this great port city of Caesarea Maritima there on the coast of the

Mediterranean. This is where Eusebius of Caesarea flourished and worked. In his initial draft of the

Creed he used the word Logos instead of Son. So whenever you see the word “Son” in the Nicene

Creed, in Eusebius’ draft he was using the word Logos. The Logos is declared to be begotten of the

Father before all ages. That is, as I say, the legacy of this old Logos Christology of the Greek

apologists.

Notice similarly in the condemnations which are affixed to the end of the Nicene Creed, they reject

the view that this begetting had a beginning.[3] The begetting is eternal. They say that they condemn

those who say there was when he was not or before being born he was not. They anathematize

anyone who says that this begetting of the Son or the Logos in his divine nature is not eternal but

had a beginning.

Athanasius, in his treatise Four Discourses Against the Arians, uses a very subtle and interesting

word play to differentiate between the Father and the Son in this regard. It is really a pun. He says

that the Father and the Son are both agenetos (agenetos means uncreated or unoriginated – it

never came into being). This is something that never came into being. He says that the Father and

the Son are both agenetos. By contrast he says that only the Father is agennetos with two “n”s. This

is a different word, and this means unbegotten. With two “n”s only the Father is agennetos,

unbegotten. The Son is gennetos, with two “n”s – he is begotten. Just as there was a world of

difference with that single iota between homoiousios and homoousios, so there is a world of

difference between agenetos (with a single “n”) and agennetos with a double “n.” The Father and the

Son are both agenetos in the sense of uncreated, never had a time when they came into being, but

only the Father is unbegotten in the sense of agennetos. The Son is gennetos or begotten of the

Father.

START DISCUSSION

Student: The examples you gave of a child being begotten from their parents implies a precedence.

In other words, the parents were there and then the child was there. Personally I struggle with the

word “begotten” - what it actually means. Is what you are saying that God was there and Christ came

from God being a precedence, and how do you tie that to John 1 which is “In the beginning was the

Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God”?

Dr. Craig: Good question. Yes, there is a precedence here, but it is not chronological. It is not a

temporal precedence. The Son derives from the Father. It is a precedence of derivation. The Father

doesn’t derive from anyone. He doesn’t derive from the Son. But the Son on this view does derive

from the Father. The Father precedes the Son, not in a temporal or chronological sense, but in the

sense that he is underivative whereas the Son is derivative. The examples that the fathers often use

that I’ve alluded to before would be things like the relationship between the sun and its rays. The sun

can never exist without its rays. It is always emanating its sunlight. But clearly the sun doesn’t derive

from its rays. The rays derive from the sun. So if the sun has existed from eternity, the sun rays – the

sunbeams – will also exist from eternity. So even though they are derivative they have no beginning

chronologically.

Student: That is what I’m struggling with a little bit. Is something being derived from something by its

very definition means that there is a time aspect to it?

Dr. Craig: What about the illustration of the sun and its rays? To me that seems like a good

illustration.

Student: What actually produces the sun rays is obviously the chemical reactions that is happening

in the sun. Without that chemical reaction happening there is no subsequent ray that happens. So

there is a sequence even in that example that you give.[4]

Dr. Craig: You are importing modern science into the example, which of course they didn’t have.

They didn’t know about nuclear fusion or anything of that sort. The idea there, though, I think on a

popular level seems to be pretty clear that you could have something that is derivative from

something else without any sort of chronological precedence. Why, if there is a kind of ontological

dependence, does that need to have a chronological beginning? I don’t see why it would.

Student: Who was it that used the terminologies of agenetos?

Dr. Craig: That was Athanasius. Actually it is fairly universal among the orthodox theologians this

distinction between agenetos meaning uncreated and agennetos meaning unbegotten. But you can

find it especially in Athanasius.

Student: The Son (Christ) existed with God but for man’s sake (for the sake of man) became a

tangible entity.

Dr. Craig:  I think that is the idea. The beginning here is not just the beginning of humanity. It is the

beginning of the whole world. John thinks that the whole cosmos came into being through the Logos.

The world was made through the Logos. In the beginning was just God and his Word. Then the

world was created through the Logos. But as a result of the speculations of these early Greek

apologists they thought of the Logos as somehow derivative from God the Father.

Student: I agree, and for functional purposes (functional for the purpose of physical man and their

accountability).

Dr. Craig: I understand the distinction. I am not committing myself to this view. I am just explaining

the view. What you are suggesting is maybe there isn’t a kind of ontological derivation of the Son

from the Father. Maybe we shouldn't introduce that into the Godhead. Maybe they are just co-

eternal, co-equal, but there is a sort of functional submission of the Son to the Father for the sake of

the plan of salvation. There were some church fathers who held to a view like that. But that wasn’t

the majority view. The majority view, because of this influence of these Greek apologists, was that

there is this kind of derivation within the Godhead – the Son deriving from the Father. Further, we

haven’t talked about the Holy Spirit, but the Holy Spirit being derivative as well, deriving from the

Father and the Son.

Student: The way I see this is that Jesus always imitates God the Father. That makes sense to me

to where Jesus always says, Father’s will, not mine. But when it says he is imitating it sounds like

God the Father would be the greater person of the three. That doesn’t make sense to me.

Dr. Craig: That is a tension within orthodoxy that I imagine some of the church fathers would want to

affirm – that the Father is greater than the Son in the sense that the Father is not

only agenetos (uncreated) but he is also unbegotten, whereas the Son has a kind of derivative

being. The Father is the fount of the Son and is therefore the greatest of all. Someone asked the

other day about the verse where Jesus says, The Father is greater than I. I think for the orthodox

party at Nicaea they wouldn’t have any trouble with a statement like that because they would see the

Son as begotten from the Father. But this isn’t a creation. That is the important thing to keep firmly in

mind. They are both God in the same way, as I say, that puppies are dogs just as much as their

parents, or kittens are feline just as much as the cats who give birth to them. They share the same

nature, but the Son is begotten from the Father.

END DISCUSSION

Let’s go on to the third point that I wanted to make today about this statement.

3. Notice the condemnation at the end. “Of those who say that Christ is a different hypostasis or

substance from the Father.” This clause occasioned great confusion and controversy within the early

church.[5] Hypostasis is a Greek word which is etymologically similar to, and therefore synonymous

with, the Latin word substantia or “substance.” You can see that etymologically – hypo means

“under” like a hypodermic needle (it goes under the skin). Or hypothermia – your temperature goes

down. Hypo means “under.” It means the same thing in Latin that sub means, like a submarine goes

under the water. In Latin sub means the same thing as hypo in Greek. Stasis and stantia are the

Greek and the Latin words respectively for “standing under something.” A hypostasis is something

that stands under something. A substance (substantia) is something that stands under something in

the sense that these are property bearers. They exist in themselves. Properties exist in these

substances. They are possessed by these substances. A hypostasis and a substance would seem

to be the same meaning. These two words just seem to be the Greek and the Latin of the same

thing.

Although the Nicene Creed is drafted in Greek, the meaning of its terms is Latin. It is in Greek but

they take hypostasis to mean the same thing as substantia. Therefore they condemn those who say

that there is a plurality of hypostases in God. There is only one substance in God, right? God is one

substance. So they condemn anyone who says that there is more than one hypostasis or ousias –

substance – in God.

The problem is for native Greek-speaking theologians from the eastern part of the Roman Empire

where Greek was the language, not Latin, they didn’t take hypostasis to be a synonym of substantia.

For them, a hypostasis just meant a concrete individual, a bearer of properties. So, for example,

Gregory of Nyssa, one of the great Greek church fathers, explains that a hypostasis, “is what

subsists and is specially and peculiarly indicated by a name.” For example, Paul. Paul is the name of

a hypostasis, an individual. This individual is in contrast to ousia in Greek which is the essence of

something. So they would say that Paul and Jim and Cindy all have the same ousia – they all have

the same essence – but they are different hypostases – different individuals exemplifying that

essence or having that nature. Therefore to say that there are not distinct hypostases in God is to

endorse Modalism. It is to say the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are all the same individual.

That was obviously wrong. Clearly there are distinct hypostases in the Trinity because they have

different properties. For example, only the Father has the property of being unbegotten, whereas the

Son has the property of being begotten. So there are different individuals in the Trinity. They have

different properties. To these eastern theologians the statement of the Nicene Creed that condemns

those who say that the Son is a different hypostasis from the Father sounded like Modalism – that

they were all the same person.

This led to enormous confusion and debate. Finally after decades of debate the confusion was finally

cleared up at the Council of Alexandria in 362. At that council they affirmed the doctrine

of homoousios – there is one substance, one essence, in God – but they allowed that there are three

different divine hypostases. They recognized the Greek understanding of what a hypostasis is.[6] It

is not a synonym to substance. Rather, a hypostasis is a concrete individual who bears or

exemplifies a nature.

Eventually the church came to recognize that in God there is one substance with three hypostases –

three individuals.

The Nicene Creed that we affirm today is not the same one as the original that condemned those

who say there are more than one hypostasis. The one that we affirm and that was promulgated later

affirms that there are a plurality of hypostases.

START DISCUSSION

Student: How do you reconcile the Old Testament with the plurality of the creation in the words that

are in Hebrew where God the Father and the Son were all there in the creation? There are words

that are used – the plural form in Hebrew – in the Old Testament.

Dr. Craig: Even the Spirit is mentioned in Genesis chapter 1, I think verse 2, where it says the Spirit

of God was hovering over the face of the waters. They would say that the Son is implicitly involved in

the work of creation even if in the old covenant he is not explicitly mentioned. Because, after all, this

hadn’t been fully revealed. They believed that God’s full revelation took time until Christ. So in the

Old Testament you have statements about God that don’t differentiate clearly the members of the

Trinity.

END DISCUSSION

With that we come to the end of our time. What we will want to do next time is examine more closely

exactly what these hypostases were that were affirmed to be in the Godhead. There is one God, one

substance, and then there are these three hypostases. What were those? That is what we will look

at next time.[7]

Trinity (Part 8): Historical Survey (4) | Coherence of the Doctrine

The Three Persons of the Trinity

Last time we were together we looked in some detail at the Nicene Creed. I think as we begin today

it would be useful to read it through one more time to refresh our memories before we proceed.

We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of all things, visible and invisible;

And in one Lord Jesus Christ the Son of God, begotten from the Father, only-begotten, that is, from

the substance of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten not

made, of one substance with the Father, through Whom all things came into being, things in heaven

and things on earth, Who because of us men and because of our salvation came down and became

incarnate, becoming man, suffered and rose again on the third day, ascended into the heavens, and

will come to judge the living and the dead.

And in the Holy Spirit.

But for those who say ‘there was when he was not’ and ‘before being born he was not’ and that ‘he

came into existence out of nothing’ or who assert ‘the Son of God is from a different hypostasis or

substance, or is created, or is subject to alteration or change’ – these the Catholic Church

anathematizes

Last week we had a blizzard of terminology in discussing this creedal statement, and lest you go

away confused let me pare it down to just a couple of essential terms that I think you should add to

your theological vocabulary on the basis of the Creed. The first would be the word homoousias. That

comes from the Greek words homo (meaning “the same” as in “homogenized” or “homosexual”), and

then from the Greek word ousia which means “substance” or “essence.” The Creed declares that the

Father and the Son (and by implication the Holy Spirit) are the same substance. They are the same

essence. That is to say the Son is fully divine. He's not some sort of subordinate deity or a created

thing however exalted. He is God. The Father and the Son have the same substance or essence.

The other word that would be helpful for you to know – hypostasis. A hypostasis is an individual. It

means something that has properties – a property bearer. As I pointed out in the original Nicene

Creed the word hypostasis is taken to be synonymous with substance – ousia or essence. That's

why the Creed has this anathema appended to it condemning anyone who says that the Son is of a

different hypostasis or substance. This is the term that created so much controversy in the Eastern

church because to the Greek-speaking Eastern theologians hypostasis wasn't synonymous with

substance. They weren’t the same meaning. Hypostasis, as I say, was an individual. So, for

example, Paul and Cash and Jim are different individuals but they all share the same nature –

humanity. They are individual instances or examples of the same substance. Their common

substance is humanity, and they are individually different men. That's why over the course of that

fourth century the church revised the Creed so that hypostasis and substance were no longer

considered synonyms, and now the orthodox doctrine became that there are indeed

three hypostases – three individuals – in one substance.[1] That became the Orthodox doctrine of

the Trinity. There's one substance – God. One divine essence. Then there are three individuals –

three hypostases – that exemplify that divine essence: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

START DISCUSSIONStudent: Last Sunday you had said towards the end of class that the Father is in a sense greater

than the Son or something to that effect. Is that correct? Is that what you're saying?

Dr. Craig: I think you're referring to this notion that the Son is begotten from the Father. I think I

indicated (if my memory serves me right) that that could have been a way in which one might

interpret the verse where Jesus says, The Father is greater than I. Because for these theologians

the Father is the sort of fountainhead of the Trinity. He is the only one that is underived in his being.

The Son is begotten from the Father. The Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. The Spirit

and the Son have a kind of derivative being that the Father doesn't share. He is the only one that is

unbegotten and underived. One could interpret that as an explanation of why Jesus said, The Father

is greater than I, because he proceeds from the Father.

Student:  I want to challenge that on one point. I am defining greatness in terms of value. In that

sense I don’t believe the Father has any more value than the Son nor the Holy Spirit. I believe they

all have equal value. I looked into this, and what I saw was what I think might be helpful. Basically,

when the Father begot the Son he didn't divide himself but he distributed himself. He gave a full

infinite distribution of himself to Christ. Then of course to the Spirit which proceeds from both the

Father and the Son. Again, you get that full distribution into the Holy Spirit also. Here's something

that I would consider also to be worth bringing up. If you look at the narrative of creation, you see

that the woman is begotten from the man in the sense that part of the man is taken from the man

and then God fabricates that into a woman. But as far as value is concerned, even though the man

proceeds the woman he's not of more value. Absolutely not. There is complete equality there. I

believe that's a good analogy to say the Father and the Son have that same sort of value even

though there might be in terms of authority or something like that – you do have the Father sending

the Son and the Son and the Father sending the Holy Spirit.

Dr. Craig: I wasn't meaning to make a value judgment by the word “great.” I was using it more in a

kind of metaphysical sense that one is derivative and the other one is underived. But you're quite

right that it would be a mistake to say that the Father has, say, moral perfection and the Son does

not. So, yes, I think that is a good reminder.

Student: I would explain that verse by saying in his incarnation “he was greater than I.” Pleroma, I

think, is the theory of the fullness and how much Christ gave up – theologians have debated that.

How much did he give up for the incarnation? We know he gave up quite a lot. He was not

omniscient for one thing. So in his state at that time of course “the Father is greater than I.” But that

doesn't mean in essence that he is greater than he is.

Dr. Craig: I was saying this is one way a person could interpret that verse. But you are offering

another way. Actually what you are talking about there is Kenotic Christology based upon Philippians

2 where Christ is said to have emptied himself and taken on human form. When we get to the

doctrine of Christ we will have a section on this issue of kenosis and whether or not the incarnation

did involve this sort of divesting of certain divine attributes in becoming incarnate, like omniscience

for example. So hold onto that. That will be later.[2]

Student: Homoousias is the same. Can you equate that to Spirit or life? Or is there some distinction?

Dr. Craig: No, I don't think so because the word simply means “same substance” and that could be

applied to a horse or mare and a colt. A mare and a colt are the same substance because the one is

begotten from the other. The term, though it's theologically useful, in and of itself doesn't carry these

kinds of implications. It could be used of physical things.

Student: I'm thinking of where it says if God withdrew his Spirit all flesh would die.

Dr. Craig: In the case of God, immateriality and incorporeality does belong to the divine substance or

essence. That's certainly true. Remember when we talked about the attributes of God I believe one

of the attributes of God we discussed was immateriality or incorporeality. God is not a physical

object. In that respect I think orthodox Christianity differs from Mormonism, for example, which

conceives of God or gods as being physical humanoid objects. So that's true. But the term itself

doesn't mean immaterial or spiritual.

END DISCUSSIONNow the question is: if there are three hypostases all exemplifying the divine nature, what are these?

The opinion unanimously on the part of orthodox theologians is that these are persons. Three

persons. It's very frequently said today (as I mentioned in an earlier class) that we must not read this

affirmation that they are persons anachronistically by importing into it the modern psychological

concept of a person. While this caution may be in order, still I think that it needs to be seriously

qualified. What is true is that the word hypostasis does not mean person. They're not synonymous

words. Hypostasis is an individual – a property bearer. Nevertheless when you talk about a

rational hypostasis then this does come very close indeed to the modern concept of a person. For

Aristotle, the ancient Greek philosopher, the essence or nature of man is captured by the phrase

“rational animal.” That's what human nature is. He is a rational animal. We have an animal body

joined with a rational soul, and that differentiates us from mere animals. Animals have souls

according to Aristotle, but they lack rationality. They have a sort of lower-order souls that don't have

rationality. So it's this property of rationality that serves to distinguish human beings from other

animals. So a rational hypostasis is what you can only refer to as a person. It is a person.

This was strongly emphasized by the Cappadocian church fathers – some of the most important of

the post-Nicene church fathers. Cappadocia is in central Turkey today. If you ever get a chance to

visit Cappadocia by all means go. It is unworldly this ancient region in central Turkey. Among the

Cappadocian fathers were people like Gregory of Nyssa and Gregory Nazianzus. There were two

Gregory's. And then there was Basil of Caesarea. These Cappadocian fathers were very emphatic

about the personal nature of these three hypostases in the Godhead.[3] For example, Gregory of

Nyssa illustrates the idea of three hypostases having one nature by pointing out Peter, James, and

John. He says these are three hypostases – Peter, James, and John – all exemplifying the same

human nature. I don't know how else you could take that than by saying that these are three persons

who share the same human nature. Moreover they ascribe to the three divine hypostases properties

which are constitutive of a personhood such as mutual knowledge of one another, mutual love, and

mutual will. They emphasize that these three persons are always in concord, always in harmony,

with each other, and so they cannot be separated or disagree with each other. But nevertheless they

are characterized by mutual knowledge, love, and will. Gregory Nazianzus boasts that unlike the

modalists he says we worship the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, one Godhead – God the

Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. One nature in three personalities – intellectual,

perfect, self-existent, numerically separate, but not separate in the Godhead.

The ascription of personal properties to these three individuals in the Godhead is especially evident

in the Cappadocian fathers’ strong emphasis upon the full equality of the Holy Spirit with the Father

and the Son. You notice in the Nicene Creed the Holy Spirit gets short shrift. All it says is “and in the

Holy Spirit” - we believe in him too. But the Cappadocian fathers emphasized that like the Son the

Holy Spirit is a divine hypostasis. Basil, for example, says that the Holy Spirit is not only incorporeal,

purely immaterial, and indivisible, but, “We are compelled to direct our thoughts on high and to think

of an intelligent being boundless in power.” So the Holy Spirit is an intelligent being boundless in

power. He quotes 1 Corinthians 2:11 where Paul says who knows the person of a man except for

the spirit that is in him. He compares the Holy Spirit to the human spirit that is in each of us. He says

in his sanctifying work the Holy Spirit makes people spiritual by bringing them into fellowship with

himself.

So these Cappadocian fathers would have resisted fiercely any attempt to depersonalize the Holy

Spirit and make him into some sort of impersonal divine force. I think it's evident that their intention

was to affirm that there are really three persons in a rich psychological sense in the one God.

While modalism affirmed the equal deity of the three persons at the expense of their distinctness,

and Arianism affirmed their distinctness at the expense of their equal deity, orthodox Christianity

maintained both the equal deity and the personal distinctness of the three persons. Moreover they

did this without surrendering their commitment to monotheism. There exists only one God who is

three persons – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

START DISCUSSIONStudent: [inaudible]

Dr. Craig: I think it's a helpful contrast. Modalism affirmed the equal deity of the three persons but at

the expense of their personal distinctness. Remember it collapsed the persons down to just a

unitarian view of God. Modalism affirmed the equal deity of the persons but at the expense of their

personal distinctness. By contrast, Arianism affirmed the personal distinctness of the three persons –

the Father, the Son are not the same person on Arianism – but at the expense of their equal deity.

[4] Only the Father is God. The Son is a created thing however great or exalted. Modalism affirmed

the equal deity at the expense of the distinct personhood. Arianism affirmed the distinct personhood

at the expense of the equal deity. And orthodoxy maintained both the equal deity and personal

distinctness of the three persons, and all the while still affirming monotheism – that there is one God.

Student: I'm going to propose a functional hypothesis. To relate a spiritual being (God) to a physical

being (man), I thought deity may play a very clear functional role in such a relationship where Jesus

is the visible form of the invisible God, and the Holy Spirit is the invisible form of the visible man.

Through that, the relationship is possible.

Dr. Craig: Okay, so what you are talking about is a kind of functional Trinity whereas what we've

been talking about so far is an ontological Trinity. Maybe that's a useful distinction to make at this

point. The ontological Trinity would be the way God is in and of himself, and this functional Trinity

that you are talking about is often called the economic Trinity. That is to say what are the different

roles or functions that the persons play in the economy of the plan of salvation. Clearly the economic

Trinity is rather different than the ontological Trinity. In the ontological Trinity the persons are all

equal, but in the economic Trinity the Son is subordinated to the Father. The Father doesn't come

and die on the cross. The Son does. And the Holy Spirit doesn't proclaim himself, he proclaims the

Son and will only proclaim what he has been given to proclaim. So I think you're right in wanting to

differentiate these different functions of the persons of the Trinity in the economic Trinity. But at this

point at least that's not our concern. We are still trying to understand the ontological Trinity before we

get to the economic Trinity, or the roles that they might play.

Student: In Revelation when it says he now has become your Father, that's the economic Trinity. Do

they change roles?

Dr. Craig: I'm not sure what passage you're referring to.

Student: It says, You’ll know him as your Father – talking about Christ – and you will be his

Son. They are changing roles in the economic Trinity – the Father and the Son?

Dr. Craig: I don't know, I'd have to look at that. I think that certainly there are ways in which the Son

could be thought of as sort of like a father. But I don't think that the Father ever abandons his role. It

might be a more metaphorical way of speaking of the Son.

Student: Not ontologically.

Dr. Craig: I understand. You are saying functionally. I'd have to look at the passage.

END DISCUSSIONThat completes the historical survey that I wanted to do with you of the doctrine of the Trinity. I think

it does bear mentioning, at least, as we conclude this section that you can see how misleading it is

when certain cultic groups like Jehovah's Witnesses or secular authors like Dan Brown say that at

the Council of Nicaea 325 years after Christ the church voted to make Jesus divine and voted to

adopt the doctrine of the Trinity. That is a gross misrepresentation. Right from the very beginning –

from the Logos doctrine of the Greek apologists – Christ was regarded as divine. The modalists

affirmed that he was divine. This wasn't some sort of late developing doctrine that the church

suddenly voted on at Nicaea. What they were struggling to articulate is the relationship between

these three persons – the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. But it's not as though this was a late

developing doctrine that the church just sort of voted to adopt.[5] Right from the very beginning

Christ was affirmed to be God. That's in the pages of the New Testament. The question was how

can he be God and not be the Father? How do you make sense of that? The doctrine of the Trinity

was the church's attempt to make sense of that truth.

This brings us to the problem of the Trinity. Is this a logically comprehensible and defensible doctrine

that there are three persons who are one God? At one level the problem seems to be that the

doctrine of the Trinity looks logically incoherent because the doctrine of the Trinity says that the

Father is God, that the Son is God, and yet the Father is not the Son. So if you say the Father is

identical with God and you say the Son is identical with God then it follows from the transitivity of

identity that the Father is identical to the Son. Yet that's not right. So how do you make sense of this

idea that the Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God, and yet the Father is not the Son,

and the Son is not the Spirit? You have three distinct persons. Basically the problem is the

transitivity of identity. If A is identical to B, and B is identical to C then A is identical to C. And yet in

this case that fails.

START DISCUSSIONStudent: In John 14 we had in the sermon today talks about I am in the Father, and the Father is in

me. Equality can be considered the Father is a subset of God and God is a subset of the Father.

That’s in mathematics. Two sets are equal if both are subsets of each other.

Dr. Craig: OK, but the idea of subsets is not the same thing as identity. Let's take the set of natural

numbers. A proper subset of that would be the set of even numbers. But obviously these are not the

same set even though one is a subset of the other. So we can’t avoid this problem occasioned by

these identity relations through sets and subsets.

Student: Mathematics says both have to be subsets of each other.

Dr. Craig: The natural numbers are not a subset of the even numbers because it's got all the odd

numbers.

Student: So they wouldn't be equal, but if they were subsets of each other than they would be.

Dr. Craig: Oh. So you're saying it's an improper subset. A subset of the natural numbers just is the

natural numbers. That’s true. Then it would be identical. But then you don't really have two distinct

sets. You’ve got the same set. Right?

Student: I know. But in John 14 what was quoted today in Scripture he said, Show us the Father . . .

I've been with you so long you don't know me? I am in the Father, and the Father is in me .

Dr. Craig: That still leaves the question how do we make sense of that? What does that mean?

END DISCUSSIONLet me suggest a proposed solution. One solution is to say that the Trinity is God. If you want to

make an identity statement then God is identical to the Trinity. If someone says, “Who or what is

God?” the answer would be the Trinity. The Trinity is God. This triune substance is God. But

obviously the Trinity is not identical to the Father nor identical to the Son because the Son is one

person, not three. The Father is one person, not three. So the Trinity is not identical to the persons.

These persons are therefore not instances of the divine nature of God. The Trinity is an instance of

the divine nature. This tri-personal being.[6] That's why the Trinity is not a fourth god in addition to

the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. There's only one God and that God is the Trinity.

Now you might say but aren't the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit God? Don't you want to affirm

that? Not in the sense of an identity statement. When one says that the Father is God, one is not

making an identity statement. When one says the Son “is” God, one is not making an identity

statement. Rather this “is” is an “is” of predication, not of identity. For example, if I say “Elizabeth is

queen” I'm not saying that Elizabeth is identical to the queen. I am saying she holds the office or the

role or the title of being queen. But it would be possible for there to be co-regents. Right? Sometimes

that happens. There's more than one king or more than one queen. So when we say “Elizabeth is

queen” you're not making an identity statement; you're making a predication. You're predicating

being queen of Elizabeth. You're making a statement like this: “Elizabeth is regal.” You're saying she

is the queen in that sense. Not an identity statement but you're assigning a predicate. Elizabeth is

regal.

So when we say the Father is God, this is a way of saying the Father is divine. When we say the

Son is God, that's a way of saying the Son is divine. You're making a predication of the Father and

the Son. You're predicating full divinity of the Father and the Son. You're not making an identity

statement. Otherwise you would get three gods.

So properly speaking the true identity statement would be “the Trinity is God.” When we say the

Father is God, the Son is God, those are not identity statements, rather they are predications. They

are predicating properties of the Father and the Son, namely the property of being fully divine.

START DISCUSSIONStudent: We often hear in the secular society and inclusiveness that all roads lead to the Father or to

God, the God of Abraham, the Jewish God, the Hindu, the Muslim, Allah. I think when they use the

word in that sense of God, and I would say no it's not Allah. It's not the same god. The true god is

the triune God. So we can't think of God in the same way if you are a Muslim, even though I think

society puts that “god” to cover all conceptions of a higher being.

Dr. Craig: That is well put. She is absolutely right. There is a kind of dictionary definition of the word

“god.” It would be something like “the Supreme Being” or “the greatest reality.” And in that sense you

can talk about different gods generically speaking. But what we're talking about here is in an even

more specific metaphysical sense, not the dictionary definition of the word “god” in English. We

mean, “What is the being or the substance that is identical with God?” And I'm suggesting we think

of this as the Trinity – the Godhead.

Student: I would go so far as to say we don't believe in the same god.

Dr. Craig: I would, too, and I’ve defended that in print as well.

Student: When you look at the Jewish concept of God, Yahweh, even though it's not distinguished in

three persons conceptually I think in the early times . . . can you comment on Yahweh? Was that

understood to be three persons? Or just monotheism?

Dr. Craig: Jews did not understand there to be three persons in the Godhead. They thought there

was one person who is God. What these early Christian Jews believed was on the basis of Jesus in

fact there was a kind of further, deeper progressive revelation of who God is. And it turns out that

God is in fact three persons unbeknownst to his people to whom he had not yet revealed that truth.

This is a truth that is only disclosed with the coming of Christ.

Student: So they worship the same God but the revelation of who he was in its entirety was not

known at that time.

Dr. Craig: Yeah, I think that's correct.

END DISCUSSIONAll right. That brings us to the end of our time. What we will do next time is try to address the

question: how can there be three persons that all are divine – three divine persons – and yet there

not be three separate beings? Three gods? How can you have three persons who is each divine and

yet not have three gods? That's what we'll talk about next Sunday.[7]

 

Trinity (Part 9): Three Divine Persons, One God

A Possible Model of the Trinity

We left off our discussion of the Trinity last time by saying that the doctrine of the Trinity that there

are three persons who are one being is a logically coherent doctrine when properly understood. But

that still leaves us with the question: how can three distinct persons be one being? How can you

have three divine persons who are together one being?

Maybe we can get a start at this question by means of an analogy. I want to caution that there is no

reason to think that there has to be an analogy to the doctrine of the Trinity among created things.

But I think that analogies can be helpful as a springboard so to speak for philosophical reflection and

for accurate formulation. So consider this analogy. In Greco-Roman mythology one of the labors of

Hercules was to subdue the ferocious three-headed dog named Cerberus who guarded the gates of

Hades. We can suppose that Cerberus, having three heads, must have had three brains and

therefore three distinct states of consciousness. Each one would be whatever it is like to be a dog.

Therefore Cerberus, although he is a sentient being, doesn't have a unified consciousness. Rather

he has three consciousnesses. Even though he's one being, he has three consciousnesses. We

could even give proper names to each of these consciousnesses. For example, rather whimsically,

we can refer to them as Rover, Bowser, and Spike. These three centers of consciousness are

entirely discreet, and when you think about it they might even come into conflict with one another.

Still, in order for Cerberus to be viable as a biological organism not to speak of being able to function

effectively as a guard dog, there has to be a considerable degree of cooperation among these three

consciousnesses Rover, Bowser, and Spike.

Despite the diversity of his three mental states, Cerberus is clearly, I think, one dog. He is a single

biological organism exemplifying a canine nature of some sort. Rover, Bowser, and Spike may also

be said to be canine even though they're not three dogs. They are parts or aspects of the one three-

headed dog Cerberus. So if Hercules were attempting to enter into Hades and Spike snarled at him

or bit him on the leg Hercules might well say Cerberus snarled at me or Cerberus attacked me.

Now I have to confess that the church fathers would have resisted analogies like Cerberus. But I

think once you give up the doctrine of divine simplicity (that God has no aspects or distinctions within

his being) then Cerberus, I think, does seem to be what St. Augustine called an image of the Trinity

among creatures. These are not exact analogies but they are sort of a shadow image of what the

Trinity is among creatures. You have here one biological organism – one dog – which has three

centers of consciousness.

We can enhance the Cerberus story by imagining that Cerberus is rational and has self-

consciousness. In that case Rover, Bowser, and Spike are plausibly personal agents. They are self-

conscious, personal agents. Cerberus would therefore be a tri-personal being.[1]

If we were asked what makes Cerberus a single being despite his three minds, I think we’d

doubtlessly reply that it's because he has a single physical body. It's because he is a single

biological organism that we would say Cerberus is one thing even though he has three mental

states, three persons. But think about this. Suppose Cerberus were to be killed and his minds

survive the death of his body. Suppose they're immortal and live beyond the death of his body. In

what sense would they then still be one being? How would those three persons differ intrinsically

from three exactly similar minds which have always been unembodied? Do you see the question? If

he is one being because he is embodied in this canine organism, if the three minds survive the death

of the body, how would they be any different than three minds that have just always existed

unembodied? What would make them one being any more as opposed to three separate beings?

And in the case of the Trinity, since the divine persons are (at least prior to the incarnation)

unembodied then we can ask why do we have here one being rather than three individual beings?

This is a difficult question but maybe we can get some insight on it by reflecting on the nature of the

soul. Souls are immaterial substances, and some philosophers think that animals have souls as well

as human beings. On this view souls come in a wide spectrum of varying capacities and faculties.

For example, higher animals like chimpanzees and dolphins have souls that are more richly

endowed than the souls of lower animals like turtles and iguanas. What makes the human soul a

person is the fact that the human soul is equipped with rational faculties of intellect and volition

which enable it to be a self-reflective agent capable of self-determination. Animals don't have souls

that are so richly endowed as to be self-reflective agents capable of self-determination.

When you think about it God is very much like an unembodied soul. In fact as a mental substance

God just seems to be a soul of some sort. We normally would equate a rational soul with a person

but that's because the human souls that we are acquainted with are persons. In our experience all of

the rational souls that we’re familiar with are individual persons. But the reason that human souls are

individual persons is because each soul is equipped with one set of rational faculties which are

sufficient for being a person. Suppose then that God is a soul which is endowed with three complete

sets of rational faculties each of which is sufficient for personhood. In that case God, though one

soul, would not be one person but rather he would be three persons for God would have three

centers of self-consciousness, intentionality, and volition. God would clearly not be three discrete

souls because these cognitive faculties are all faculties of just one soul. So God would be one soul

which is tri-personal in nature. Just as our individual souls support one person because they are

equipped with one set of rational faculties sufficient for personhood, we can think of God as a soul

which is equipped with three sets of rational faculties, each sufficient for personhood.[2] This sort of

model, I think, would seem to give a clear sense to the classical formula three persons in one

substance.

So that's the model of the Trinity that I want to propose as a possibility.

START DISCUSSIONStudent: Is it possible for any of the three persons to disagree with one another? In our experience

you can have three persons but what if one disagrees with the other? Like, “I want to do this,” and I

say, “No, no, I want to do this instead.” Is that possible to happen in the Godhead? If not, how does

that affect the idea of God having free will?

Dr. Craig: I don't think it is possible. I kind of give a hint at that when I talked about Cerberus where

you could have these three heads snarling at each other and getting in conflict. But with God I think

what we want to say is that he is always in harmony with respect to what he knows, loves, and wills.

There is a classical doctrine, especially among the Greek Church fathers, called perichoresis which

helps to illuminate this. According to the doctrine of perichoresis there is a kind of interpenetration of

the divine life among the persons of the Trinity considered in abstraction from the world – God

existing alone just the three persons. What the Father wills, the Son and the Spirit also wills. What

the Father loves, the Son and the Spirit also love. What the Father knows, the Son and the Spirit

also know. So there is a complete unity and interpenetration of love, will, and knowledge among

these three distinct persons so that disagreement would be impossible. I think that makes good

sense in light of their perfect goodness, their perfect knowledge. It would seem that they would

always be in harmony with each other.

Student: In light of that, and maybe this relates more of the incarnation, when Jesus is praying in the

Garden of Gethsemane he asks “take this cup away from me.” Granted he goes through with it in the

end obviously but there is still that moment where he is basically saying, Do I really have to do this?

I don’t want to. Would that have some more to do with the incarnation perhaps?

Dr. Craig: I think it is intimately connected with the incarnation. Here we see the Logos –  the second

person of the Trinity – in his so-called state of humiliation (this state in which he has given up his

glory and magnificence that he had with the Father before the world began) and has entered into this

state in which he identifies with human beings in their fallenness and finitude, and as such

experiences all the limitations of human finitude. Physically he could grow tired, he could feel pain,

he could get weary, he could get hungry or thirsty. Mentally he didn't know everything that was going

on. He had to ask questions. The Scripture says that the boy Jesus increased in wisdom and

knowledge as he grew older. He grew morally. The book of Hebrews says that he was perfected

through what he suffered. So all of these would have relation to his human nature, and so I would

say in his human nature Christ can pray to the Father, Let this cup pass from me, nevertheless not

my will but thine be done. We'll talk more about that when we get to the doctrine of Christ, but you're

quite right in seeing it intimately connected with the doctrine of the Trinity.

Student: The last couple weeks I've been trying to get my mind around this because it's difficult, but I

found something in my old systematic theology book that I just wanted to get your opinion on. Louis

Berkhof, a Reformed theologian from about a hundred years ago, says that as far as the Trinity is

concerned here, “it brings distinction and distribution but no diversity or division in the divine being.”

Let me go on with a definition here. This is a definition that he gives: “The following necessary act of

the first person in the Trinity whereby he within the divine being is the ground of a second personal

subsistence like his own and puts the second person in possession of the whole divine essence

without division, alienation, or change.”[3] Basically what he's saying there is that there is a

distribution but since God is infinite there is an infinite distribution into the second and I guess also

by extension the third person of the Trinity. I'm just wondering if you have any thoughts on that. But

to me it also raises a question which is a speculative question in nature – why the number three? If

God is infinite and can infinitely distribute himself why not an infinite distribution? Why three?

Dr. Craig: To answer the last question first, I don’t think that any orthodox theologian that I know of

think of the threeness of the Godhead as something that is due to God’s will. It is not as though he

said, “OK, let’s be three persons rather than four or five.” Rather, this is an essential property of the

trinitarian nature. There couldn’t have been more than three persons. This is an essential property of

God just like omnipotence, omniscience, or moral perfection.

But with respect to the first question, I think it's really important when we hear these theological

formulations that we demand clear meanings of them, that these aren't just fancy words but they

have clear meanings. Certainly I think we want to agree that there isn't alienation among the persons

of the Trinity (or I think he said change; I think that's true). But diversity – he affirmed distinctness. I

don't see how you can have distinction without diversity. That would be what I understand by

diversity. I would say that that kind of distinctness or diversity is necessary in virtue of there being

three persons. I take very seriously and literally the idea that we have here three first-person

perspectives each of which can say I think that and stands to the other in an “I-thou” relationship

– you think that, I think that. So we have three centers of self-consciousness which are therefore

necessarily distinct and diverse. Now there are views of the Trinity that deny that. Sometimes the

view that I'm laying out here is called a social trinitarianism which takes very seriously and literally

the three persons or centers of self-consciousness. So-called Latin trinitarianism that characterizes

people like Thomas Aquinas tends to think of the three persons of the Trinity as just relations. That

insofar as God is the subject he is I, and insofar as he is the object he is the Son. It seems to me

that that's no different than when I think of me or if I love myself – “me” is the object of my love. Or if

I even hit myself, “me” is simply the object of “I.” But it's the same person. So I don't think those

kinds of views of the Trinity take seriously enough the notion that we have here three distinct

persons each of which has a first-person perspective on things.

Student: One of my favorite G.K. Chesterton quotes is he says that paganism was all the rage then

Christianity became the biggest thing and everything since then has been boring. The Trinity, I think,

is connected with that. What doctrine is like the Trinity? In connection with that, too, when a couple

times I’ve talked . . . this is just more of a conversational apologetics thing . . . when I’ve talked to

some very scientifically-minded people, they quote people like Dawkins that say if you think you

understand quantum theory then you don't really understand quantum theory. After I’ve explained

the Trinity (because they asked questions and they say it is hard for me to understand), it’s like, well,

then that should fit right in with what you think about quantum theory. Why not embrace that part of

it?[4] The Trinity is the deepest part of theology, and that’s why it is hard for us to wrap our brain

around it.

Dr. Craig: The reason scientists believe in quantum theory is because there's good evidence for it

even if it is very, very difficult to understand and perhaps nobody can make sense out of it. Similarly,

with respect to the Trinity, I think what we would want to say is there is good evidence to believe that

God exists and that he's revealed himself in a unique way in the person of Jesus of Nazareth who

was himself divine. What I’ve proposed here is not an attempt to say this is the way it is. That would

be presumptuous. That would be what Martin Luther would call a theology of glory where you claim

to have special insight into the divine being. What I’ve suggested is this is a coherent model. This

makes sense of the doctrine and therefore removes any rational objection to it that Muslims, cultists,

or other unitarians might propose. I think this is a really good model for thinking of the Trinity. But, as

I say, it is just a possibility.

Student: Maybe I would modify your concept just a little by saying this: we don't know much at all

about the soul, do we? I mean, we have some hints in Scripture that the spirit is a division of the soul

which is especially responsible for our communication with God, and that is what has to be

regenerated when we're saved. If we’ve got that division maybe we have many other divisions, too.

Frankly I don't know any way on this side of eternity to know what those divisions are. But maybe if

we think of the three members of the Trinity as sharing portions of their soul, rather than having the

same soul (which I know you don’t mean completely because if you have the exact same soul you’d

have the same volition, personality, and awareness) but maybe they share enough whatever the

subdivisions of these souls are that you would say the same essence, but of course then retain their

individuality as you have said by maintaining that for yourself. Maybe they don't have to have the

exact same soul but people are spoken of as “soul mates” . . . it is impossible for us to share our

soul with somebody else, but maybe the Trinity is shared.

Dr. Craig: I just want to resist any slide into tri-theism. You have got to have one being here which is

God. So we have to be very careful lest you get three souls like Cerberus – when he dies you seem

to have these three canine souls.

Student: I wouldn't push it that far but wouldn't you think you could have the essence as being the

same – you do have one God. If enough of the soul is shared – this would be known only to God –

we don’t know how much has to be shared, but enough is shared that it is one God. There is not

three Gods.

Another thing. I’ve always had problems with this idea that in Gethsemane Jesus was afraid to die

on the cross. He had to know essentially all his days that he was here to be sacrificed. He told his

disciples, I am going. I’m coming back. He had to know that. With all the strength he had, I just have

found that difficult to believe. I want to throw this out. It might be a little controversial. Some of you

may have heard it; maybe some of you haven’t. If you look at Hebrews 5:7, during the days of Jesus’

life on Earth, “he offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the one who could

save him from death and he was heard because of his reverent submission.” Now I'm told that in the

Greek the structure is God answered that prayer in the affirmative. So we all say how could he have

done that? He had to go the cross. Yes, if the cup is going to the cross. But I have come to believe

that Satan tried to kill him physically in the Garden of Gethsemane and that's what he was praying

for. Don't let him kill me so that I can go to the cross. God answered that in the affirmative. He died

on the cross rather than dying from Satan. If you think of the story, remember how he told the

disciples to stay away and stay back. He may have just been under physical . . . Satan may have

just been pulling out every bit of power he had to deprive Christ of his life to keep him from going to

the cross. This is a theory that quite a few people agree with. One of them is Vernon McGee (he

died several years ago) – he is a well known Bible teacher who now has Through The Bible With

Vernon McGee going all around the world.[5] When I first heard that I didn’t agree with it. But over

the decades I’ve come to agree. I’ll just throw that out.

Dr. Craig: All right. Well, you're certainly free to throw it out. I think that one would be desirous of

having a better textual warrant for it. It seems like one has a sort of gap there and so you just make

up this hypothesis to stick in the gap without any textual warrant for saying that that's what was

going on. Whereas you have Jesus saying, Let this cup pass from me, nevertheless not my will but

thine be done, it seems very much that the cup which he says he has to drink is his death on the

cross and he's willing to in the end take it but he would have God have it pass from him. What is the

difficulty? Oh, the difficulty was you said Jesus knows that he is going to die. That's true, but

remember in his finite human consciousness it's not as though Jesus is omniscient and knows

everything. He is still at that moment willing to pray if there's some way to do this without my dying

then let's do it that way but nevertheless I'll do your will.

Student: I'm just saying the closest thing to a prooftext would be Hebrews 5:7 which implies that God

answered in the affirmative.

Dr. Craig: The problem is it doesn't mention Satan trying to kill him, and that's my concern.

Student: But it says death.

Dr. Craig: OK.

Student: What I thought about was the cup that he drank was his Father’s wrath. That’s what I think.

That’s what he was in agony over - not dying. The fact that he was drinking his Father's wrath on

himself.

Dr. Craig: And one would need to look earlier in the Gospels where Jesus talks about the cup and

what that means. When he says to the disciples, You want to be at his right and left hand in the

Kingdom. He said something like that: are you able to drink the cup that I have to drink; are you

willing to be baptized with the baptism I have to undergo. It does seem that, I think, it's talking about

what you are referring to.

Student: God passes over us and puts all the wrath on Jesus.

Dr. Craig: Yeah, that’s the doctrine of the atonement that I've been studying lately.

Student: Back to the analogy of the Cerberus. It seems like it’s lacking in that it puts forth either three

Fathers, three Sons, or three Holy Spirits. It has a real benefit in helping us in seeing the atonement

of the cross.

Dr. Craig: Okay, that forms a wonderful segue to the next section that I want to address but let me

just see if there's any final comment on this before we move on.

Student:  I thought this is interesting. If marriage is to live out according to God’s design and purpose

then that unity is like a unit but two different souls. I thought it's interesting that Jesus Christ is the

second Adam so in the beginning before the fall of man God and Adam (Adam and Eve, man) are in

unity, almost like Jesus and God are in unity until after man fell. Then Jesus in unity wants to restore

(that's the marriage between Christ and the church) that unity back to God. I just thought that is the

heaven that God wanted to realize.

Dr. Craig: I think that while the marriage analogy can be a useful springboard for thinking about the

Trinity, in the end we're still looking for something that makes these two one being, and it's not

enough just to have unity of love or unity of will and harmony. That can exist among diverse beings.

[6] What we're still looking for is something that would make these three persons one being, and that

is what my model is attempting to get at.

Student: I think these personalities relate to function. You can have these diversities and unity if you

talk about function and integrating those three by function. In answer to modalists, unitarians, or

Muslims, most of them talk about the Spirit of God. That’s another personality. They talk about, in

the case of Muslims, a lot of them the Qur’an is God. So you have multiple persons being identified

as God. In the case of the modalist, if you got redemption ongoing (we talked about this a little bit

last week) which was Christ's mission, if he changed into the Spirit whose function is to convict in

righteousness and judgment you would have an offset to redemption. These are just some thoughts

in support of the trinitarian concept.

Dr. Craig: It seems to me that functions alone aren't going to provide a diversity of persons though

the different functions of the persons might address the question someone earlier was raising as to

what differentiates the Father, the Son, and the Spirit in terms of perhaps the functions they play.

END DISCUSSIONLet me go on to that right now and we will conclude our time together today by looking at this.

Some of you may have noticed that the model that I gave doesn't include the derivation of one

person from the other which is enshrined in the confession of the Nicene Creed that the Son is

begotten of the Father, light of light, very God of very God, begotten not made. The model doesn't

preclude that either. It just leaves it an open question. So if you want to add the derivation of one

person from another, you are free to do so. But on the model as I’ve laid it out, God could just exist

eternally with his three sets of cognitive faculties and capacities. Three self-consciousnesses. I,

frankly, think this is a strength of the model because although the doctrine of the generation of the

Son from the Father and the procession of the Spirit is a part of Nicene orthodoxy, nevertheless it

seems to be a relic of this old Logos Christology of the Greek apologists which has no warrant in the

biblical text and seems to me to introduce a kind of subordinationism into the Godhead which

anybody who wants to affirm the full deity of Christ ought to find really troubling.

Biblically speaking, the vast majority of contemporary New Testament scholars recognize that the

word which is translated in the authorized version as “only begotten” (namely monogenes) means

simply “unique” or “one and only.” It does not mean “only begotten.” It means “unique” or “one and

only.” Most of your modern translations will translate verses like John 1:14 and others not as “only

begotten” but as “God the one and only” or something of that sort. It's true that when this is used in

the context of a family then to say that a child is monogenes is an only child would imply that he's

only begotten. It doesn't mean only begotten but it would imply that this child is only begotten. But

when you look at the biblical references to monogenes which would include verses like John 1:14 or

John 1:18 when it says the only begotten God or God the one and only who is in the bosom of the

Father has made the Father known they're not talking in these verses about some kind of pre-

creation or eternal procession of the divine Son from the Father.[7] Rather, they seem to be

connected with the historical Jesus being God's Son. It is in virtue of the incarnation that Jesus is

God's special Son. Look for example at Luke 1:35 as an illustration of this. Luke 1:35 – this is the

annunciation to Mary by the angel. In verse 35 the angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon

you and the power of the most high will overshadow you. Therefore the child to be born will be called

Holy, the Son of God.” Here Jesus being the Son is connected with the virginal conception. It's

because Jesus had no human father that he could be called God's special Son. If that's right then

Jesus being monogenes has less to do with the Trinity than with the incarnation.

You can see this primitive understanding of Jesus’ Sonship still in the letters of the very early post-

apostolic church father Ignatius. Ignatius describes Christ as “one Physician, of flesh and of spirit,

begotten and unbegotten, . . . both of Mary and of God” (Ephesians 7). Here Ignatius associates

Jesus being begotten with his flesh being begotten of Mary, but insofar as he is Spirit and of God he

is unbegotten he says. There is no idea here in Ignatius at least that Christ is begotten in his divine

nature.

The transference of Jesus being God’s Son from Jesus of Nazareth to the pre-

incarnate Logos seems to be an invention of these early Greek apologists. I think it has helped to

depreciate the importance of the historical Jesus for Christian faith.

Theologically speaking, orthodox theology rejects firmly any depreciation of the Son with regard to

the Father. For example, Athanasius writes, “They that depreciate the Only-Begotten Son of God

blaspheme God, defaming His perfection and accusing Him of imperfection, and render themselves

liable to the severest chastisement" (In illud omnia mihi tradia sunt 6). Here what Athanasius is

condemning is subordinationism which is a doctrine inspired by Gnostic or Neo-Platonic thought

which conceived of God as “the One” - a kind of undifferentiated unity which then in a kind of series

of stair steps descends down to the world and in which you could have these kind of intermediate

stages that are not equal to the One but are kind of lower-class deities. For example, Origen who

was trained under the Neo-Platonist philosopher Ammonius Saccas, says this about the Son. He

speaks of the Son as a deity of the second rank having a sort of derivative divinity as far removed

from that of the Father as he himself is from creatures. He says the Son's divinity is as far from the

Father's divinity as it is from the creatures below him. That kind of subordinationism was rejected by

the church fathers. Origen was condemned for holding such a view. Yet at the same time these very

same theologians continued to affirm the doctrine that the Logos is begotten of the Father. The Son

in their view derives his being from God the Father.[8] Athanasius says this: “the Son has His being

not of Himself but of the Father” (On the Opinion of Dionysius 15). Hilary (another church father)

declares that “He is not the source of His own being. . . . it is from His [the Father's] abiding nature

that the Son draws His existence through birth” (On the Trinity 9.53; 6.14; cf. 4.9). These same

theologians that affirmed the full equality of the Son and the Father also affirmed that the Son

doesn’t have existence in himself but derives his being from the Father. I don’t think that, despite

their assurances to the contrary, this can do anything but diminish the Son because he becomes an

effect which is contingent upon the Father. Even if this eternal procession takes place necessarily

and apart from the Father’s will, the Son is less than the Father because the Father alone exists a

se, that is to say through himself or of himself. He has aseity. The Father exists a se while the Son

exists through another.

There is much more that I want to say about that, but we are out of time. I will simply leave you with

that to think about for the coming week. Next time we’ll look at this and bring it to a close as to

whether or not we need to affirm that the Son is begotten or generated by the Father and the Spirit

proceeding from the Son. That’s next week.[9]

 

Trinity (Part 10): The Relationship Between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit

The Ontological and Economic Trinity

As we are drawing to a close our discussion of the Trinity I have focused on a feature of the model

that I think is of some interest, and that is that the model I've offered of the Trinity – of God as a tri-

personal soul – does not feature (though it does not preclude) the derivation of one person of the

Trinity from another. It does not include the notion of the Son's being eternally begotten from the

Father. I suggested last time that I think it's good that the model leaves this an open question

because the doctrine of the begetting of the Son from the Father in his divine (as opposed to human)

nature is not biblically attested. It also seems to introduce an inevitable element of subordinationism

into the Godhead which would seem to make the Son inferior to the Father because only the Father

is unbegotten who exists in a self-existent way and the Son has the ground of his being in the Father

and therefore has a kind of derivative existence which, to me at least, seems to make the Son

arguably inferior to the Father.

It is very interesting to note that the early church fathers interpreted this Arian proof-text (John

14:28), “The Father is greater than I,” not in terms of Christ’s humanity but in terms of his being

generated eternally from the Father. Athanasius, for example, affirms that the reason the Father is

greater than the Son is because only the Father is unbegotten. Similarly Hilary (another church

father) says, “The Father is greater than the Son: for manifestly He is greater Who makes another to

be all that He Himself is, Who imparts to the Son by the mystery of the birth the image of His own

unbegotten nature, Who begets Him from Himself into His own form” (On the Trinity 9.54). Doesn’t

that make the Son therefore inferior to the Father if the Father is the source and the origin of the

Son? Hilary denies it. Hilary says, “The Father therefore is greater, because He is Father: but the

Son, because He is Son, is not less” (9.56). The Father is greater than the Son, but the Son is not

less than the Father. That’s just to talk logical nonsense. That’s like saying that six is greater than

three, but three is not less than six. That just doesn’t make logical sense.

Basil, one of the Cappadocian church fathers, sees the contradiction in Hilary’s statement, but he

tries to avoid this contradiction by saying and I quote, “the evident solution is that the Greater refers

to origination, while the Equal belongs to the Nature” (Fourth Theological Oration 9). So what Basil is

saying is that the Father is greater in terms of origination (because he's unbegotten whereas the Son

is begotten) but in terms of nature they both share the same nature and therefore are equal. This

reply seems to me to raise all kinds of difficult questions. Doesn’t it belong to the nature of the Father

as an individual person to be unbegotten? And doesn’t it belong to the nature of the Son as an

individual person to be begotten? Or is there a possible world in which the Father is begotten and

not unbegotten? Classical trinitarian theology would deny this. So how are the Father and the Son

equal in nature if greatness refers to origination and the manner of their origination is essential to

their individual natures. If you think about it suppose that they are equal in nature but that the Father

has the contingent property of being unbegotten and the Son has the contingent property of being

begotten.[1] In that case they have the same nature but the Father still has this contingent property

of being unbegotten, a property the Son lacks. Wouldn’t that make him greater than the Son at least

in this respect? It would seem to me that it would.

So at the end of the day what Basil has to say is that having self-existence is not after all a

perfection or a great-making property. He says and I quote, “That which is from such a Cause is not

inferior to that which has no Cause; for it would share the glory of the Unoriginate, because it is from

the Unoriginate” (Ibid.). That seems to me to be not a convincing answer. To be dependent upon the

unoriginated being for one’s existence is to lack a ground of being in oneself alone, and that surely is

not as great as to be a self-existent being which is able to exist all on one’s own. It has the ground of

its existence in itself. This kind of derivative being is the same way in which creatures exist.

Creatures exist in virtue of being caused by another.

So despite the protestations to the contrary, it does seem to me that Nicaean orthodoxy has not

completely shed the sort of subordinationism that was introduced into the doctrine of the Trinity by

the early Greek apologists with their Logos doctrine.

START DISCUSSIONStudent: Can you comment on John 6:57 which sounds like it could be used as a proof-text by the

Nicaeans where Jesus says, I live because of the Father?

Dr. Craig: Right, we did talk about that outside of class. I think I said when you look at the context

there what he’s talking about is the resurrection life. It’s not talking about self-existence or these

sorts of metaphysical issues. It’s talking about the resurrection life that the Son has. So I don't think

that taken in context is relevant to this.

Student: This is related to the procession – that idea of the proceeding of the Son and whatever. I

always liked the example of the Trinity of ice water – not just water but the system. A glass of ice

water has cubes, it has water, and it has vapor over the top. I'm working on a lesson this week –

Trinity and the incarnation in our Bible study. I was thinking about this. An extension of that is if

water is a cube it becomes . . . not always as a system, you’ve got some water and some vapor over

the top . . . but the cube will become water and the water will become vapor if just left. These are the

same substance (ontologically) but different functions. Steam is good in some places but not in

others. Water is good in some places but not in others. And cubes are good in some places and not

in others. I see this related to being a functional or in terms of this differentiation of personalities.

Dr. Craig: However apt the analogy might be, it is only an analogy or an illustration. I don’t think that

it goes to address the philosophical or theological point that I'm trying to make, and that is that

having derivative being is not as great as having a ground of existence in yourself. Yet that is what

the Nicene doctrine of the begetting of the Son affirms. It seems to me that that makes it difficult to

think of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit as fully equal.

Student: Are some of these people making this more complicated than it has to be?

Dr. Craig: I think so!

Student: In the beginning (as we know there was no beginning to the deity, he has no beginning),

the second person of the Trinity was there – the Logos. He was there. The only thing that was

begotten here for the incarnation was the body in which the second person of the Trinity agreed to

abide to fulfill this atonement (which you are studying now).[2] He didn’t create the second person of

the Trinity. He created the body in which the second person of the Trinity agreed to inhabit so that he

could die for us. I don't understand all the problem with trying to say “was Christ created by God?”

Well, the body of Jesus Christ was, yes, created by God, but the spirit (the soul) of Jesus Christ as

the second person of the Trinity was most certainly not created by God.

Dr. Craig: I think the view you are expressing is similar to the view that I am wanting to propose. But

it is not the view of classical Nicene orthodoxy. When we hear, I think as Christians today, that Jesus

is the only begotten Son from the Father, we think of the incarnation, don’t we? We think of the virgin

birth. We think of his human nature. But the point I'm making is that when you read the creed and

the theologians leading up to it what they’re talking about is not Jesus being begotten in his human

nature. They’re talking about him being begotten in his divine nature – that before the universe was

created there was Father, Son, and Holy Spirit . . . Did I use the word “created?” I shouldn’t have

said “created” if I did. I meant “begotten.” He is not created. He is begotten from the Father eternally.

So in the Godhead from eternity prior to creation there is the Father who is unbegotten and then the

Son who is derivative from the Father – begotten, the Logos is derivative from the Father – and then

the Spirit derives from either one or both of them. If you find that, as you say, overly complicated I

sympathize with you. But I'm trying to give you an accurate understanding of what the Nicene Creed

affirms.

Student: Just one follow-up question. What’s wrong with those folks?

Dr. Craig: You know what? This is an excellent question. I think it is due to the Logos Christology of

these early Greek apologists. Remember they were struggling to explain how the Father is divine

and how the Son is divine and yet you don’t have two gods. That is a difficult question. The way they

solved that was by saying that the Son is the Logos or the mind of the Father and it proceeded out of

the Father as a sort of separate person. Nicene orthodoxy never really shed that Logos doctrine of

the derivation of the second person from the first person of the Trinity.

Student: Considering John 12:48-50, I was curious about his volitions. If Jesus’ words that he spoke

– the things that he said – was of the Father and not of him – are his own words, the things that he

says, from the Father?

Dr. Craig: What you are referring to is verses in the twelfth chapter of John where Jesus says things

like this: I have not spoken on my own authority. The Father who sent me has given me command

on what to say and what to speak. What I say therefore I say as the Father has bidden me. You

know elsewhere in John Jesus says something very similar of the Holy Spirit – He will not speak on

his own authority but he will glorify me – which does indicate a kind of subordination of the Son to

the Father. Now, having said that, that forms of very nice segue to the next section where I want to

talk about the difference between the ontological Trinity (which is the Godhead in and of itself) and

the economic Trinity (which is the roles played by these various persons in the plan of salvation). I

think it’s the economic Trinity that is evident in these verses as we’ll see.

Student: How would you comment on the notion that the second person of the Trinity – the Son – is

intrinsically linked to humanity? In other words, if you asked somebody to define Jesus Christ, they

would define Jesus Christ as God in human form.[3] In other words, Jesus Christ, the second person

of the Trinity, is intrinsically human and defined as having a human nature. For instance, I think of

theophanies in the Old Testament. Whenever we see God personified and acting like a human we

say that could be a theophany – that’s Jesus Christ. So would you say that the second person of the

Trinity or Jesus Christ is intrinsically linked to his humanity and has always been and his existence

outside of the world is just like we will exist? When we die and go to heaven we will still have a

human soul even though we don't have a human body; Jesus Christ still has like a human soul

because it's part of the definition of who he is.

Dr. Craig: I would strongly resist that. That would make the body of Christ essential to the second

person of the Trinity, and I think that's very problematic. I don't think Jesus had a body prior to the

incarnation, so it’s not essential to him. Certainly prior (if you will) to the existence of the universe the

second person of the Trinity didn't have a body or a human nature. So it’s not essential. Moreover

there are possible worlds which God never creates and exists alone in which case the second

person of the Trinity doesn't have a body. And there may even be possible worlds where there’s

never an incarnation at all for whatever reason. So I think we should resist saying that having a

human nature is intrinsic or essential to the nature of the second person to the Trinity. This seems to

me to be a contingent property of the second person of the Trinity which is adopted for the sake of

our salvation.

Student: Would you say the second person of the Trinity, the Son of God, is exactly synonymous

with Jesus Christ?

Dr. Craig: When you talk about synonymous, you’re talking about words, not things. Right? I don’t

know how one would . . . probably you would not say that those words are synonymous: Son of God,

Jesus Christ. What I would say is that they both refer to the same person. Those two expressions –

the first of them, the Son of God, that's what linguists call a definite description like “the man in the

gray suit,” “the chair next to the table,” “the highest building in New York.” Those are definite

descriptions. The Son of God is a definite description. Jesus Christ is a proper name like Ben or Jim

or Cindy. And what we would say is that in both cases those two linguistic expressions (one a

definite description, one a proper name) both have the same person – the same entity – as their

denotation or their referent. They refer to the same person.

Student: I may be misunderstanding where you're going so correct me if I'm wrong, but if you’re

suggesting that Christ became the begotten upon the incarnation (if that is what you are suggesting)

would it then be true that the Father wasn't “the Father” and the Son wasn’t “the Son” until the

incarnation? They wouldn’t have had that relationship with each other?

Dr. Craig: Alright, we have been flirting with this question for some time. So let's now proceed to talk

about that.

END DISCUSSIONSuppose that we drop from the doctrine of the Trinity the notion that the Son and the Spirit proceed

eternally from the Father. Remember I said the model I've offered doesn't feature it though it doesn't

preclude it. So let's suppose we drop that. How then should we understand the intra-trinitarian

relations? Here I want to draw this distinction between the ontological Trinity and the economic

Trinity. By the ontological Trinity, I mean the Trinity as it exists in and of itself apart from God’s

relationship to creation. This is the Trinity or God insofar as he exists in and of himself apart from

any relation to the created order. The economic Trinity has reference to the different roles played by

the persons of the Trinity in relation to the world and in particular to the plan of salvation. So the

question that is raised is: to what degree is the economic Trinity a reflection of the ontological

Trinity?[4]

Here I want to mention a church father that is perhaps not so well known to you, but important in his

own time – Marcellus of Ancyra. Marcellus was one of the leaders at the Council of Nicaea who

championed the orthodox cause. But as Marcellus read the Gospel of John he noticed that

the Logos is not referred to as “the Son” until after the incarnation. In fact you would be hard-pressed

to find anywhere in the New Testament where there is a reference unambiguously to the pre-

incarnate Christ as “the Son.” These observations led Marcellus to hypothesize that prior to creation

the economic Trinity just did not exist. The Logos becomes “the Son” only with his incarnation. So on

Marcellus’ view the relations in the economic Trinity do not always mirror the distinctions within the

ontological Trinity.

Similarly on the model that I’ve presented the persons of the ontological Trinity can be just as similar

to one another as three individuals can be in terms of having the same knowledge, the same love,

the same will, although each one from its own first-person perspective. It may well be arbitrary which

person chooses to play the role of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Those titles have

reference to the economic Trinity – the relations that are played by the three persons in the plan of

salvation with respect to the created order. “The Son” is whichever one of the three becomes

incarnate and takes on a human nature. “The Spirit” is the one who stands in the place of and

continues the ministry of the Son. And “the Father” is the one who sends the Son and the Spirit. But

in a possible world in which God did not create any world at all but just existed alone the economic

Trinity would not exist even though the ontological Trinity would exist.

In contrast to Marcellus we don’t need to say that the economic Trinity began at the moment of

creation as he thought. We could say that the economic Trinity exists eternally because the persons

of the Godhead all knew the respective roles that they would play in the plan of salvation. They have

foreknowledge of the different roles that they will play even if the deployment of that economy

doesn't take place until the fullness of time when Christ eventually becomes incarnate and so forth

so.

On this view the economic Trinity can be just as eternal as the ontological Trinity but it isn't

fundamental to the nature of God or of the persons. Although they didn't agree with Marcellus’ rather

maverick view, both Athanasius and the other members of the Nicene party continued to support

him. Although he was pushing the boundaries of orthodoxy, they felt that he was still one of

themselves and part of the orthodox party.

On this view within the economic Trinity there is subordination (or maybe a better word would be

submission) of one person to another. As we’ve read in the Scripture a moment ago, the Son

submits to and does the Father’s will, and the Spirit speaks not on his own account but he speaks on

behalf of the Son. This economic Trinity does not mirror or reflect differences in the ontological

Trinity between the persons. Rather the economic Trinity is an expression of God’s free and loving

condescension on our behalf for the sake of our salvation. So on this view the error

of Logos Christology was conflating the economic Trinity with the ontological Trinity and thereby

introducing this subordinationism right into the nature of God himself rather than seeing it as purely

functional.[5]

So those are my comments on that issue. It is highly controversial, and I've tried to represent fairly

what Nicene orthodoxy holds and how this view would differ from it. But the model doesn't preclude,

as I say, the procession of one person from another but it just doesn’t include it, and it seems to me

that that’s a strength of the model in light of these comments.

START DISCUSSIONStudent: How would you respond to talking about existence and proceeding and begetting? Many

Catholic theologians who are very obviously . . . they hold onto that Nicaean begotten thing. They

would say that (I think even C. S. Lewis said this) when a dog begets a dog the dog is not better

than it, it just makes another one of the same nature so therefore it's not better. It’s just proceeding

or whatever. How would you respond to that? They would say God is the same way. God can only

beget another God.

Dr. Craig: In the case of the dog begetting another dog, both dogs are contingent beings and are

derived from another parent. But when we come to God, the Father is unoriginated. He is

unbegotten and uncreated. The Son by contrast (though he is uncreated – he’s not a work) he’s not

unbegotten. He doesn't therefore have the ground of his own existence in himself. He only exists in

this kind of derivative way. My concern is that that makes him less great than the Father because it's

greater to have the ground of your being in yourself alone rather than in another. I don't think, as I

said earlier, this can be refuted by appealing to analogies. You've got to deal with the issue. Is it

greater to be unbegotten in your being rather than derivative in your being? If you think that it is then

I think you're going to sympathize with my struggles. If you think it's not greater than I think that

would lead to a very peculiar view of God that there could be worlds in which God himself is

begotten or derives from another – that he doesn't exist a se,  in and of himself. It seems to me that

God’s aseity or self existence is just absolutely fundamental to who God is. So this does seem to me

to be a perfection. That's my struggle here.

Student: I just want to point something out here. I'm going to read something from the Athanasian

Creed which is a little more developed than the Nicene Creed. I’ll read lines 25 to 27 real quick:

And in this Trinity none is before, or after another; none is greater, or less than another. But the

whole three Persons are coeternal, and coequal. So that in all things, as aforesaid; the Unity in

Trinity, and the Trinity in Unity, is to be worshipped.

I think the problem with the model you are proposing when you say the Father is greater than the

Son . . .

Dr. Craig: That is a view I am disagreeing with.

Student: Oh, you are?

Dr. Craig: I'm saying on my view there are three co-equal persons as the creed you read states.

What I’m concerned is that on the Nicene view the Father is greater than the Son even though its

proponents denied this.

Student: Oh, I see what you're saying. I was going to say if that really were the case in Scripture you

would see a higher position of the Father than the Son. It would be kind of like when we prayed we

would say something like “We pray to God the Father, and last but not least we also pray to the

Son.” You would never pray like that.

Dr. Craig: Or worship! What about worship? Would worship be directed to the Son or only to the

Father? I want to have as high a Christology as possible. Christology is the doctrine of Christ. We’ll

talk about that later on. I think we want to elevate and magnify Christ as great as we can. The

Scriptures speak of him as God. That is what I find so disquieting about this element of

subordinationism that the Logos doctrine seems to introduce.[6]

Student: A quick question about the ontological vs. economic distinction. My question is if the

economic is true, what basis is there for choosing which one would be subordinate so to say to the

other one? If the ontological is true that they are all co-equal then how did they choose, so to say,

which one is going to be subordinate to whom in the economic view? That seems arbitrary to me.

Dr. Craig: Right, it would seem to me that this is an arbitrary choice. God has freedom of the will to

arbitrarily choose which person will play which role.

Student: Right. The Logos could be the Father, or the Holy Spirit could be the Son. It all could just be

arbitrary.

Dr. Craig: I think that that is the essence of free will – to choose arbitrarily between two completely

similar options.

Student: With this view then, the three persons of the Godhead preceded eternal and for whatever

reason there was a three-person God. Correct?

Dr. Craig: Yes, there is and was and always will be.

Student: Are we saying that there was a council of the persons? Was their role always their role? Or

was there actually a decision made who would be submitting to be put in a human body and serve

the role of salvation and the Holy Spirit as well? In that view, it is a little disturbing because it sounds

like there are three gods and they are making a decision. Is it that their roles were eternally

determined in the past?

Dr. Craig: Did you say “eternally” or “internally?”

Student: Pick one! [laughter]

Dr. Craig: OK. I’ll pick “eternally.” Let me address what you’ve said. Marcellus’ view was that this

was a temporal decision taken at some point in the finite past, like the moment of creation. I’m not

comfortable with that view. It seems to me that in virtue of divine foreknowledge of the future that the

three persons would know from eternity which roles that they would play, and that therefore there is

no reason to say the economic Trinity was decided upon at some time a finite number of years ago.

This is an eternal sort of decision on the part of God, but it is a free decision. It is not one that he had

to make.

Student: How much support does Marcellus’ idea have today among theologians?

Dr. Craig: I don’t know. This just isn’t talked about very much. I really don’t know. I should read a

paper on this at the Evangelical Theological Society conference sometime and see if it raises a

storm of controversy or whether or not it meets with a lot of resonance. I do not know.

Student: Could the ontological members of the Trinity have taken turns being Jesus?

Dr. Craig: That seems to me to be more problematic in view of Jesus’ resurrection and ascension

into heaven. He always has the same body. An interesting question would be: suppose there are

extraterrestrial, intelligent life on some other planet in some other galaxy, and they fall into sin, and

God wants to have an incarnation there to redeem them and rescue them. Could one of the other

members of the Trinity have become incarnate in that world to save those people? Maybe there is a

Klingon savior that is a member of the Trinity. I don’t know!

END DISCUSSIONNow we are really pushing the boundaries! Next time I will offer a plausibility argument for the truth

of the doctrine of the Trinity.[7]